Mouser Electronics: Engineering One of the Tightest Ships in Shipping to Give its Customers an Edge

Mouser Electronics: Engineering One of the Tightest Ships in Shipping to Give its Customers an Edge

By Mouser Electronics, www.mouser.com, (800) 346-6873

Increased sales pressures, tight budgets, and rising energy costs are among the top concerns for electronic distributors in 2012. Additionally, distributors face the challenging mix of ensuring prompt order accuracy, maintaining product levels, and managing inventory controls. Mouser Electronics takes the extra steps to earn high marks in these areas. The #1 priority: Distributing the customer’s order on time with the highest standards of accuracy and quality.

“Our goal is to be the world’s most preferred source for electronic components,” says Pete Shopp, Mouser Senior Vice President of Business Operations. “This involves distributing the right product on time and as efficiently as possible. We are always looking for ways we can improve the customer’s speed-to-market.”

With nearly 50 years of distribution experience under its conveyer belts, Mouser makes the distribution process look easy, but its tight ship is a well-engineered machine where the average order takes only 15 minutes to pick and ship out the door. In today’s competitive marketplace, running a tight ship is a critical business practice for distributors of all sizes.

At the hub of its design-fulfillment distribution model stands Mouser’s 492,000-sq.-ft. worldwide corporate headquarters and warehouse. It should come as no surprise that a company committed to distributing the newest components for the newest designs would also seek to incorporate the latest technologies in its distribution system.

As one of the world’s premier global electronic component distributors, Mouser receives a staggering number of orders on any given day — keeping up with demand is perhaps one of the most persistent challenges. The company ships globally to over 375,000 customers in over 170 countries, and in most cases provides same-day shipping. Technology plays a vital role in helping Mouser achieve productivity gains, cost reductions, general efficiencies, prompt delivery, and its high order accuracy.

Among these technological timesavers is Mouser’s newly expanded carrousel system; it’s just one of many innovative machines in the distributor’s cutting-edge warehouse. Mouser implemented the state-of-the-art, double-decker carrousel assembly last year. With the help of this intelligent, fully automated system, a small number of workers can accurately and consistently handle a large number of orders. Rather than using the traditional method of sending hand-guided carts to collect products, the carrousel system works by automatically bringing the needed parts to the worker. The time to retrieve each individual part is significantly reduced, meaning that the orders go out the door faster.

To get a glimpse of Mouser’s nearly perfect pick-and-ship operations, visit www.mouser.com/aboutus or check out the You Tube video of Mouser’s warehouse at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajux9XSa1v0. ■