Founded in 1933, HUI is a contract manufacturer with expertise in sheet metal fabrication, design engineering, powder coating, and assembly. HUI specializes in industrial and medical product fabrication and serves customers nationwide.
Our approach to Supply Chain Management starts with our customer and ends with our suppliers. This begins by understanding the end user’s needs. Undoubtedly we hear “we need to find ways to reduce inventory, and device foot print within Hospitals and OR’s” as well as, “maximizing efficiency and accuracy for nurses and doctors”. A challenge for anyone who manufactures products for the medical industry is finding suppliers that share the same beliefs and goals as you have.
As a contract manufacturer that builds custom medical carts and industrial enclosures, our goal is to be part of our customer’s strategic supply chain initiatives. The first step is having the right suppliers on our team. We accomplish this by,
- Supplier Consolidation Process
- Supplier Qualification Process
- Supplier Performance Score Cards
- Annual Supplier Performance Reviews
HUI has made great strides over the last five years in developing a world class supply chain. We’ve taken the traditional Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) concept and created a Virtual Vender Managed Inventory program (VVMI). How does this work? A VVMI program is achieved by aligning our customer’s ERP system to HUI’s ERP, and HUI’s system with our supplier’s.
Another key is that we take a proactive approach to understanding our customer’s lead times and inventory initiatives. This sharing of information allows us to have a real time view of our customer’s finished goods inventory, products in process at HUI, and expected orders. We do this because HUI’s internal production time from raw material to finished good is, on average, 3 days (this does not account for engineering or sub C time.) Ultimately, the result is increased inventory turns for our customers and for us.
Through our dedication to continuous improvement, developing processes, and managing supplier relationships, we help preserve our customer’s working capital by maintaining short lead times of 10 working days and successfully manufacturing small quantity runs, with an average of 25 parts per order. We have also been able to maintain high quality standards with a defect rate of less than 1,000 PPM.
HUI can deliver what you need, when you need it which keeps inventory levels at a minimum for our customer’s and for us.
Utilizing our LEAN Manufacturing principles, we regularly collaborate with our customers to improve their product manufacturability so we can reduce cost, inventory, and lead time. To read an example of how we successfully did this click on the flowing link: http://www.medicalcarts.org/article-rockwell-supplier-partner-of-the-year
