How Performance Drone Works Built a Robust Procurement Process

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Industry

Aerospace & Defense

Company Size

50-200

Location

Huntsville, AL

The Background

PDW engineers and manufactures autonomous drones. Their AI-based autonomous UAS platform is designed to maximize mission effectiveness while minimizing personal risk for the modern warfighter. The company's platform offers a reconnaissance device embedded with a 3D-vision-based obstacle avoidance capability that lets flight operations in a GPS-denied environment, enabling the modern warfighter to increase mission effectiveness. As developers of life-saving tactical robotic applications, providing a steady flow of products for their customers is PDW’s number one priority.

Component shortages and increased volatility in the semiconductor supply chain made this goal progressively more and more complex and challenging for PDW.

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"We have now incorporated Z2Data into our regular supply chain risk rituals. Z2 is a critical part of our standard risk analysis cadence around lead times, availability, and responding effectively to the market."

Solution

PDW identified the need for developing a strategic procurement process that included methodical risk analysis and risk buying plans as vital components for building a robust supply chain solution.

Collaborating and discussing their challenges with one of their partner's hardware acquisition team recommended Z2Data as a solution.

After conducting a thorough market study and competitive analysis, PDW found that Z2Data has the most comprehensive component and supplier database and the most accurate real-time market and event data to help build a more robust and resilient supply chain.

Result

PDW has now built a robust procurement program and successfully practices JIT procurement by using Z2Data. As a result, they manage and mitigate their supply chain risks efficiently and provide a consistent product flow to their customers.

By conducting regular BOM risk analysis to find high-risk elements, PDW can be agile in their procurement and proactively find component alternatives or suppliers to eliminate manufacturing delays and costly redesigns and maintain their target product life cycles.

Increased Efficiency

Business Continuity

Time Saving

There are many pitfalls in supply chains now; you can run into a discontinued component and regularly see delays. Z2Data fills a critical gap for our purchasing, helping us build a more robust supply chain model on the inflow side, so we don’t end up with stoppages.

Z2Data has been a valuable tool allowing our organization to avoid supply driven product redesigns and, alternatively, massive inventory over-purchasing. Manually gathering and analyzing market data is incredibly labor intensive - Z2 has allowed our team to react quickly and regularly to early warning signs of supply chain issues, helping to increase our efficiency on several fronts.

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James Slider

COO, PDW

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