Global sourcing for European companies
The UK’s largest independent contract equipment manufacturer has set up a group to source components from around the world and wants to open this up to non-customers in the UK.
ACW has offices in the US and Shenzen, China, to source chips directly from suppliers, often at a lower cost than in Europe or through a distributor. “We have set up ACW Global Sourcing for the supply of components to our business,” said Chris Woods, owner and executive chairman. “We are very keen to find material at the right price and that's not always in the far East.”
It works closely with distributor Arrow, which has an office and staff at the Southampton headquarters. “We are not looking to compete with Arrow but there are things like metal work and other commodities that we could offer to people that are not our customers,” said Woods. He is especially looking at startups who might not have established component supply chains.
Reliability of supply is also important. “We have this database of companies that we have audited and we are constantly benchmarking prices to reduce the costs of our customer’s products,” he said.
