Schuster Electronics offers a wide variety of services and programs to help streamline your purchasing and supply chain functions. We can tailor a solution for your needs or combine several services. Cost-efficienct solutions to save you time, effort, and expense. Value-added & Customer Services include:

• Custom Connector, switch and cable assembly
• High density terminal block assembly
• Parts marking, engraving, packaging, and kitting services
• Custom rail assemblies
• Just-In-Time (JIT) delivery services
• Barcode and custom labeling
• Quality assurance testing for cable assemblies
• Custom modifications of printer, LCD, & interface modules
• Strip product cut to customer specifications
• Special inspection
• Same day shipping
• Consolidatd shipping
• MRP, bonded & safety stock, Schuster re-order on stock agreements,
• EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)
• Printed circuit board modification
• Electro-mechanical assemblies
• Certified Value-Added facility for Phoenix Contact
• AND MUCH MORE!

Advantages of Using Schuster for Your Value-Added Needs Increased Production

Through Additional In-house Machinery:

• Wire cutting / stripping machine
• Drill press for custom rail assemblies

Quality Assurance:

• Devoted to 100% accuracy
• All inspections documented
• Subcontracted assemblies brought back to Schuster for in-house inspection, assuring 100% quality control
• ISO standards implemented to tighten control of all value-added product
• SPC procedures used
• Thorough inspection and test procedures

Focusing on Core Competencies

An increasingly faster moving and competitive market place has forced us all to continually reexamine our business. Success today depends on our ability to honestly answer (and act on) the following questions:

• What do we do well (and not so well)?
• What do we need to do to be successful?
• What defines our company in the marketplace?

In the past “vertical integration” (directly controlling as many aspects of the design and manufacture of your product as possible) was considered a high virtue. Manufacturers built complex, selfsufficient operations to maximize manufacturing control.

Unfortunately, these complex organiza- tions tended to be expensive and slow to react to market changes. Further, they made sense only if a company did everything well; few did. As markets shifted, vertically integrated manufacturing operations became liabilities to their owners.

Focusing on “core competencies” is all about allocating resources only to those things your business can (or must) do well. It means freeing up resources to be applied to what you do best, to what defines you in the marketplace.

Frequently, it means farming-out the things your company does not do well to specialized contract manufacturers who do. Utilizing contract manufacturers allows you to buy someone else’s core competency, only as much as you need.

BUY VS BUILD: Cost Justifying Contract Labor

Cost justifying contract labor services is more complex than simply evaluating the direct costs of raw material and labor required to build an assembly vs. the cost to contract the assembly out. A complete buy / build analysis should also evaluate indirect costs such as:

• Inventory: Raw material, WIP
• Finished goods
• Scrap, excess & obsolete
• Engineering design/changes
• Manufacturing set-up
• Tooling (both to purchase and maintain)
• Production routing / planning
• Material processing (buying, receiving, inspecting, moving raw material)
• Interest expense
• Overhead (floor space, utilities, management, capital equipment depreciation, etc.)
• Lost opportunity (where else could this money be spent?)

The table illustrates an example of how significant these indirect costs can be relative to direct costs.

The indirect cost of planning and processing manufacturing jobs is frequently more than the direct material and labor costs. It is critical to identify and account for these costs when evaluating the value of using contract labor.