Software tools manage selection of components

Software tools manage selection of components
Melville, N.Y. - Banking on OEM customers' seeing value in paying for component selection, sourcing, design and collaboration services, electronic-components distributors Arrow Electronics Inc. here and Pioneer-Standard Electronics Inc. (Cleveland) have independently rolled out new fee-based services. Developed to help engineers and purchasers make better buying decisions, and to speed customers' time-to-market, the services claim to enable users to seamlessly manage their bills of materials from component selection to end of life.

Arrow's Global Information Business unit today will launch Global Explorer, its latest online subscription service available within the distributor's Connectivity Dashboard. Through a sophisticated search application, the Global Explorer component-discovery and selection service promises quick access to comprehensive information, such as part descriptions, data sheets, cross-references and product-change notices-all linked to Arrow's commerce and technical data in a seamless environment. Global Explorer's annual subscription incorporates access to Arrow's other fee-based services, with pricing based on the number of seats.

Pioneer-Standard Electronics and its Aprisa Inc. software subsidiary used the recent Electronics Distribution Show as the platform to unveil StraightLine, a software tool set that's said to provide unique solutions for streamlining new-product introduction and reducing the cost associated with the major steps in product development, including conceptualization, research, design, collaboration, documentation, sourcing, quoting and procurement.

The tool set aims to accelerate customers' design time, time-to-production and time-to-market by automating time-consuming quote and procurement analysis, said Martin Shum, president and chief executive officer of Aprisa (Westlake Village, Calif.). It will also significantly increase productivity, he said.

Arrow is promising much the same thing. "Our strategy is to help people along the supply chain to make better-informed decisions," said Chris Henry, vice president and general manager for Arrow's Global Information Business unit (Hauppauge, N.Y.). "By doing that, we help them accelerate their time-to-market by giving them better information and connecting them together."

Search by master list

Features in Global Explorer that differentiate Arrow's component-selection tool from competitors' offerings include its guided-discovery and selection functionality, the ability to search by a customer's master list, risk-management data and the ability to search by similar parts, Henry said.

"Global Explorer allows access to data focused at the design community, where they don't know the part number but they do know the part's characteristics," Henry said.

Within Global Explorer, users can incorporate their "master list" or approved vendor list, identify parts or select alternates, and assess and compare the procurement risk associated with each part. In addition, users can dynamically compare their component results by several parameters.

These include the comparison of multiple parts for analysis, retrieval of direct cross-references, risk assessment and the ability to find functionally similar parts and view the results as research or commerce.

Aprisa's StraightLine software modules, meanwhile, include Discovery Center, for hardware engineers in the research and early-design stages; Component Center, for engineers and buyers who are sourcing components; BOM Center, for creating, cleansing and reviewing orderable bills of materials; and Quote Center, for automating the quoting.

The tool set is built on a comprehensive, XML component database with detailed information on more than 4 million active and passive orderable part numbers from more than 900 semiconductor and electronic-components manufacturers.

StraightLine, developed by Aprisa with funding from Pioneer, will be offered at a monthly per-seat subscription fee. Discovery Center will be offered at a subscription charge of $500 per seat per month, while BOM Center will carry a $1,200 per-seat monthly fee and Quote Center will start at $500 per seat per month. Component Center will be free as a move to seed the user base.

Will OEMs pay?

Although some in the industry are skeptical about whether OEM customers are willing to pay for such services, Arrow, for one, is encouraged by the competition. "It's one thing to charge for an existing service that you've already provided, but it's a different thing to offer a new service-particularly one that you can't get someplace else," Henry said. "It's really value added and there is a considerable investment associated with offering these services. We spend millions of dollars a year in building a database and making sure it's accurate, as well as adding new applications."

Arrow was the first distributor to introduce a fee-based business last year, with the launch of Arrow Digital Solutions, newly restructured as Global Information Business, a Web-based supply chain collaboration tool suite. Since then, Arrow said it has improved the features and functionality of the tool set with the launch of Dashboard Connectivity, a Web-based collaborative tool, and Ubiquidata, a database of more than 16 million parts that drives Arrow's fee-based services including Risk Manager, Alert and Parts Cleansing.

Elsewhere, Avnet Inc. last year launched Promiere, an online services business that provides a variety of design, supply chain and inventory-management services. With the help of key partners-including America II Electronics, Cadence, i2, PMG and Spin Circuit-Promiere provides fee-based services targeted at supporting the entire product-development cycle from a new design to end of life.

Visit www.arrow.com,
www.aprisainc.com and
www.promiere.com.