How ATE Giant Teradyne Optimized Its Commercial Parts Sourcing Processes

Founded in 1960 and headquartered in Boston, Teradyne is an automatic test equipment (ATE) designer and manufacturer whose clients include some of the most high-profile names in the technology, electronics, and wireless communications sectors, including IBM, Samsung, and Qualcomm. Teradyne has the singular distinction of being the world’s largest supplier of semiconductor testing equipment, and designs and develops a broad portfolio of products for logic, RF, analog, power, mixed-signal, and memory technologies. The company’s LitePoint line of testing equipment, meanwhile, provides advanced solutions for a wide range of connectivity systems, with a focus on ensuring the consistency and reliability of next-generation wireless devices and cutting time to market for its large-scale enterprise customers. 

In addition to its standing as one of the foremost ATE organizations in the world, Teradyne also oversees a robotics division that encompasses Universal Robotics and Mobile Industry Robotics (MiR). Though operated independently, these companies collectively offer a comprehensive array of sophisticated automation products, from collaborative robotics and autonomous mobile robots to the motion control software that allows engineers to manipulate machine components with the highest possible degree of precision. These state-of-the-art robotics technologies help Teradyne’s manufacturer clients streamline operations, increase production efficiency, and contribute to safer, more optimized workplaces. 

‍

Challenge

Shirley Loaiciga works as Process Coordinator and a Business Analyst in Teradyne’s offices in Costa Rica. One of her largest responsibilities in that role is fielding requests from Teradyne engineers asking for commercial parts to use in their manufacturing processes. “I am in charge of reviewing all the information” related to specific parts, Loaiciga said. This includes tasks like going over country of origin, confirming inventory availability, maintaining data sheets, EOL / HTS information coordinating with suppliers. On any given day, Loaiciga might receive 80 or even 100 requests from the engineering department about specific components integral to their projects. Though she was accustomed to the workload, Loaiciga found that she was struggling with the software tool Teradyne was using at the time to research critical parts data. “Sometimes we received concerns [from the engineers] about the information on the tool,” she said. Even when she would request more information from the platform, it “wasn’t uploaded on time” to be useful to her coworkers. 

In cases where Loaiciga wasn’t able to confirm the requisite details about parts in a timely fashion, Teradyne relied on a separate team to conduct extensive reconnaissance work to obtain the information. This group would have to reach out to multiple sites—in some cases, as many as five different manufacturers—to confirm the specifics the engineering department needed to complete their bills of materials (BOMs). These intermittent slowdowns were a drag on Teradyne’s operations. When the platform wasn’t providing prompt or trustworthy access to component data, Loaiciga’s sourcing work became a bottleneck that not only made her job as the commercial parts manager more difficult, but also reverberated across the engineering department, potentially affecting project timelines. 

Between the questions around data integrity and the struggle to find alternative sources of information, Teradyne’s Costa Rica facilities were struggling to maintain the deftness required of a multinational electronics manufacturer. The company needed to do something different.