What kind of company is Supplyframe, acquired by Siemens?
Link supply chain with engineering chain
On May 17, 2021, Siemens signed an agreement to acquire Supplyframe, a provider of Saas solutions for the electronics industry, for US$700 million.
With this, Siemens will “The transaction unlocks significant value for customers of Supplyframe and Siemens, providing seamless and quick access to both Siemens’ offerings and Supplyframe’s marketplace intelligence. “, according to the company. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021.
What kind of company is Supplyframe?
The company, Supplyframe, can be summarized as follows.
Supplyframe is a SaaS solution vendor that not only provides an Amazon-like platform for sourcing and purchasing components for the electronics industry, but also uses the data from this platform to provide a variety of AI-based solutions.
There are already many sites and platforms for searching and sourcing electronic components, but Supplyframe networks more than 70 of them to provide integrated information.
“Over 10 million engineering, sourcing, and supply chain professionals regularly engage with our Network properties and SaaS solutions in the course of their daily research and decision-making. (website)”
In addition, “users access comprehensive, continuously updated information spanning a universe of over 1 billion in-market part attributes, including real-time availability and lead-time data, along with 700,000 downloadable 2D/3D models.”
In other words, they are characterized by the number of components they handle, the number of users and the number of accesses, and the ability to provide a variety of services using the information they obtain.
This enables users to take cost and supply planning into account in the planning and development stages.
It also gives suppliers a chance to expand sales of their products on a wide scale.
Press Release : Siemens accelerates digital marketplace strategy with acquisition of Supplyframe
Significance of Siemens’ Acquisition of Supplyframe
By integrating this solution with its own existing solutions, Siemens will be able to offer a solution that links the engineering chain with the supply chain, allowing cost and supply planning to be taken into account during the planning and development phase.
In other words, it will enable “cross-organizational process optimization,” which is the essence of DX, as pointed out in last year’s (2020) Monozukuri White Paper. This will make it possible, for example, for designs to respond quickly to a sudden shortage of semiconductors.
The White Paper on Manufacturing for this year (2021) also states, “As global uncertainty is expected to continue to rise, we need to strengthen our resilience not only by anticipating damage to our own companies, but also by taking a global view of the entire supply chain and diversifying our suppliers to address risks from multiple perspectives. This is one of the key messages of the report, and it is exactly in line with this direction.
What is the future development of Siemens?
In the future, Siemens may use this platform to centralize design information and provide solutions that enable extensive collaboration within the user’s own organization, as well as with business partners.
Furthermore, as the use of electronic components is becoming increasingly important not only in the electronics industry, but also in all manufacturing industries, including the automotive industry, it is likely to be deployed as a solution for these industries as well.
Action needed for the Japanese manufacturing industry
There are three major directions that Japanese manufacturers will take in the future.
- The first is as a total integration manufacturer, developing and delivering final products and services to the market.
- Secondly, component manufacturers that provide competitive components for these products
- The third is a solution vendor that provides IT solutions and service to the above two based on their own skills and technologies.
In fact, some Japanese companies are two of these in one company, and some major vendors are all three.
Now, when considering this acquisition of Siemens this time, as an integration manufacturer, you can first consider using this solution to increase your design responsiveness and reduce costs.
As a component manufacturer, you may be able to expand the sales channels for your products by joining this network. In order to do so, you will need to have competitive products as well as an internal infrastructure that can provide real-time cost and delivery information.
As a third solution vendor, one way is to provide a solution that can compete with Siemens’ solution. If it is difficult for one company to do so, a partnership with another company may be necessary.
If it is difficult to compete, it may be possible to work as an ecosystem in partnership with Siemens.
The transformation of Japan’s manufacturing industry is an urgent issue. Each company has already begun to take action, but further acceleration is required.
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