The Chip Insider®– Fixing the Supply Chain

Summary:

Fixing the Supply Chain: Now that the great shortage is long over and… the resulting glut’s almost over... it’s a good time to ask:

• What did we learn?
• Do we need to change?
• What do we do differently going forward?
• How do we better balance risk versus cost?

During the shortage, there was a fast gear shift from Just In Time to Just In Case (JIT>JIC). The switch seemed to reduce risk. But Just In Case raised cost and led to a foggy bottom question of how much is enough? Which, in part led to the bloated inventory problem of 2021. Since then, the JIT>JIC gear shift has gained greater scrutiny… I was awakened to these issues when I was fortunate enough to moderate last November’s SEMI’s ITPC Supply Chain panel. We brought together four real semiconductor supply chain experts:

• Maitreyee Mahajani, who as Western Digital’s Vice President of JV Fab Management brought a memory perspective
• Bindiya Vakil, who is Resilinc’s CEO & Chairman of the Board and brought a SCM AI perspective
• Hiroshi Iwatsubo from Murata Manufacturing, who is a Senior Executive Vice President, with a perspective from auto supply chains and capacitor shortages in previous years.
• Carolin Seward from Google, who is Vice President of Custom Silicon Sourcing & Operations, bringing both an IDM and hypervertical perspective

The general consensus of all was that Just In Case supply chain strategies have been an utter failure and that future issues need to be solved through … This independence made their insights priceless:

“What you do in life echoes in eternity” – From the Movie “The Gladiator”

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