How Rakon Streamlined their Component Selection

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Industry

Electronics Manufacturing

Company Size

500-1,000

Location

Auckland, New Zealand

The Background

Rakon is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of frequency control products and timing solutions that are embedded in various applications such as 5G networks, satellites, and autonomous vehicles.

The company started in New Zealand and has since grown to manufacture thousands of parts in various global locations. As they grew and acquired companies, the need arose to merge and consolidate product lines as well as their component purchasing. Merging thousands of internal part numbers (IPNs) and manufacturer part numbers (MPNs) proved to be a very challenging process.

“The great thing about Z2Data is that it has been evolving with the industry and global requirements. The tool has been helping us more and more as we have been using it, and the benefits to the company have been increasing with our usage.”

Solution

The company's CEO, Dr. Sinan Altug, recognized the need for a global strategy for component selection to help streamline their component selection and increase their product quality control.

Nicole Lie, the Program Delivery Manager for Strategic Initiatives, who was the Program Manager of Global Engineering at the time, was tasked to help build this initiative.

After analyzing the problem, Nicole realized the need for a tool to help Rakon with this task. Subsequently, a thorough evaluation of the tools available in the market was done, and Z2Data was onboarded as a component selection management tool.

Result

Once Z2Data was onboarded, Rakon could easily classify its components and build a robust component selection strategy. This helped them eliminate component redundancies, improve their quality control processes, and increase their purchasing power.

As Rakon began rolling out Z2Data into their other global business units, they started encountering shortages that had begun impacting the entire industry due to Covid.

At that juncture, Rakon needed a tool to help them with their component sourcing to meet their product manufacturing and life cycle management needs.

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Streamlined Component Selection

Improved Quality Assurance

Increased Purchasing Power

"We needed the component data sheets, availability, and lead time data on components on an ongoing basis. Additionally, we needed compliance data for quality standard control and EU regulations. To get that information, you have to go to lots of places; you may be able to use the web for some but not all of that information. This was a big project, and even if a full-time engineering team went directly to the suppliers for the information, we would not get what we needed.

A database like Z2Data was exactly what we needed.”

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Nicole Lie

Program Delivery Manager for Strategic Initiatives

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