The team at Burton EMS recognizes a constrained market requires that we work as closely as possible with our customers and suppliers to keep products on schedule. Over the past 2-3 years, Burton EMS Purchasing Department has developed relationships with suppliers outside the regular distribution channels. The team at Burton recognizes a constrained market requires we work as closely as possible with our customers and suppliers to keep products on schedule. Proactive vendors living up to commitments and communicating impending issues are seeing the bulk of our spending. Many of our parts can be reallocated into bonded inventory now that the market is less constrained. We have a number of supply chain partners willing to carry bonded inventory for us and live up to their commitments. The bonded inventory gives customers maximum flexibility with minimum liability. The majority of these parts are in high demand and easy to restock should a forecast change. Where possible, we are moving customers to these sources of bonded inventory, setting demand based on a 12-month forecast. We are working to get all our volume production customers to give 52+ weeks of commitments based on component lead times. We modify that expectation for customers with legacy products built on an as-need basis or a few times a year.
Here are a few tips to further mitigate component availability issues:
- Put our design team in the design cycle from a Bill of Materials (BOM) standpoint as early as possible. We offer a free BOM scrub service to existing customers to help them assess risk in critical to design components.
- Avoid single-source parts or those with limited sources.
- Parts not recommended for new product use should be avoided as its obsolescence risk is high.

Burtons Design Engineering team can help with all your component engineering-related needs. Our pool of specialists can help you manage increasingly complex development environments and offer full life cycle management with a strong focus on cost savings and defect prevention. Capabilities include:
- Product/PCB Design
- PWB layout
- Design for manufacturability (DFM)
- Component selection assistance (alternative sourcing)
- Development of manufacturing aids (fixtures, stencils, etc.)
- RoHS conversion assistance
- Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) recommendations