How to manage a product transfer in less than a week: challenge accepted.

When choosing the most appropriate manufacturing site for your projects, product requirements are at the heart of the decision. Occasionally, those requirements can change throughout the lifecycle of your product, which can lead to discussions about transferring the product to another site that meets those requirements.

The Asteelflash Germany team had recently similar challenges with one of their industrial customers.

The decision was made that a product transfer from Asteelflash Eberbach to Asteelflash Design Solutions Hamburg was more suitable for the customer’s project: both sites have comparable technologies, capabilities, and expertise. The complex PCBA with an annual volume of 2,000 units fit perfectly with the high mix and medium volume strategy of Asteelflash Design Solutions Hamburg. The biggest challenge was to maintain the continuity of the customer's supply chain while enabling the transfer in only one week. Usually, a thoroughly prepared new product introduction (NPI) process would take several weeks.

One of the key members responsible for the transition project team was Peter Rothenhäuser, PME Engineering in Eberbach. Click here to watch his interview!

How did you manage a transfer in such a short time?

After checking if the production was possible under similar conditions, the transfer was organized in several steps. Thanks to our global ERP Systems and a program created by our Hamburg facility, the data transfer was possible in less than 3 days. After the Purchase Orders (PO) were assigned to Hamburg in the ERP system and the material was shifted from Eberbach to Hamburg, the Eberbach engineering team made sure the launch in Hamburg was successful, all of it in less than a week.

What did you consider to be the biggest challenge of this project transfer?

To enable a quick start of the production and avoid delays, the transfer of materials needed to be scheduled promptly. Also, it was very important to ensure continued compliance with quality standards, even though the production sites had changed. Meanwhile, the overall aim was to maintain deliveries to our customer while ensuring a smooth supply chain. Therefore, the team had to start with a small ramp-up from day 4^thto 6^th, up to full mass production on day 7^th, in just two production cycles.

Do you need to transfer your project from your current EMS to a new one? We can take care of it, contact us!