Take a deeper dive into how to create supply chain resilience for small and medium PCB design teams

We recently held a webinar for small and medium sized PCB design teams on how to create supply chain resilience.

We talked about the Supply Chain application, included with PADS Professional Premium, which allows users to access real time component sourcing data from over 133 component suppliers and distributors, and this list continues to grow. It is available for any PADS Designer user, no matter what flow you use. All you need is an active subscription.

Some great questions came in during our session and we wanted to share them on this blog.

How many distributors are in the supply chain app?

At last time I was asked this question, it was 70, but we’re up to 133 right now. And those are distributors not just based in the U.S. but also internationally. This number will continue to grow.

Is the supply chain data updated frequently?

Siemens purchased the company, Supplyframe, a little over a year ago. The Supply Chain application is the first application at Siemens where we take advantage of the acquisition of Supplyframe.

Supplyframe is known for multiple websites about components, like Findchips. They must keep a live active database of all these suppliers that they update regularly, and we’re tapped in directly to that.

Is the supply chain data and the schematic updated automatically?

The data in the supply chain tab is refreshed/loaded when you turn on the tool or open that tab. You may have seen in the live webinar demo that when the bill of materials was exported, there’s actually a refresh button that you can use on the fly to refresh the data. So, it’s not real time in the sense that any time something changes, you see it, but you can refresh it whenever you need to make sure the data is current.

I already own PADS Professional. How can I get to this capability?

So this is a good question to contact your salesperson for. PADS Professional Premium includes a license of PADS Professional and all the available cloud apps including Supply Chain. If you already own just the perpetual or time-based PADS Professional, you can purchase either the PADS Professional application suite which includes Supply Chain, Connect and PartQuest Portal, or you can buy each of those cloud applications individually in our online store. But again, your salesperson can give you more information and they can sell it directly, you don’t have to buy it online.

Do we get alert or updates for life cycle changes?

If you’re in the tool and you refresh the information in that Supply Chain tab, the cell will turn a yellow color to indicate that there has been a change. So, if there was a life cycle change, you’d be able to see it pretty quickly.

Watch our webinar!

To see a full demonstration of the Supply Chain application, watch our on demand webinar.