By Erin Harmeyer

As a buyer at Rockwell Collins Simulation & Training Solutions (STS) in Binghamton, N.Y., Christi Johnson is charged with purchasing items – wire, machined and sheet metal parts, cockpit instruments, and various components – that without being assembled perform minimal functions.

	Understanding our Supply Chain organization
	Learn about the eight functional groups that comprise our Supply Chain organization

Yet, without Johnson searching for the best value on these and various other components, engineers at this East Coast facility would not be able to design and develop the products our customers have come to rely upon. In Binghamton, our simulators are known for preparing military pilots and maintenance crews for combat.

"If I can't meet deadlines for getting our parts, then I hold everybody up – manufacturing, software integration, customer acceptance testing, and so on," said Johnson, who joined our company via the December 2003 acquisition of NLX. "Procuring parts is a major component of making sure we achieve our overall goals – both for our programs and for our company."

The efforts of Johnson and about 900 other employees working behind the scenes in our Supply Chain organization help Rockwell Collins meet the majority of its enterprise goals.

"Supply Chain encompasses many areas – we basically buy anything that needs to be purchased for our company," said Roger Weiss, vice president of Material & Supply at Rockwell Collins. "It also includes many other aspects – from increasing efficiency and maintaining customer-business relationships, to handling the logistics of getting parts to and from our facilities around the world."

With a supplier base of more than 7,000, the Supply Chain organization at Rockwell Collins strives to help our company remain competitive by keeping costs at a minimum. But, according to Kevin Myers, senior director of Enterprise Procurement, ensuring costs are low isn't the only thing to be considered when working with potential suppliers.

"We are committed to making sure Rockwell Collins has the very best product at the right quality, the right price, and at the right time," said Myers. "We also consider other supplier criteria – responsiveness, commitment to technology development and innovation, and whether the potential supplier meets our Lean objectives."

Excellence through efficiency

Photo by Jonathan Cohen, Binghamton, N.Y.
Behind the scenes — Christi Johnson is one of about 900 employees working behind the scenes in the Rockwell Collins Supply Chain organization. People like Johnson procure the appropriate parts, enabling our engineers to design and develop the products our customers have come to rely upon. Johnson is a buyer at our facility in Binghamton, N.Y.

According to Phil Krotz, director of Supply Chain Services, who joined our company more than two decades ago, the Supply Chain organization's ability to increase efficiency over the years and therefore meet customer expectations has resulted in various forms of industry recognition.

In 2005, for example, Purchasing Magazine awarded Rockwell Collins its 2005 Medal of Professional Excellence Award – an accomplishment previously given to companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Harley-Davidson and Lucent Technologies.

The organization also was honored by the Institute of Supply Management in 2006 with its R. Gene Richter Award for Technology and, in 2007, Purchasing Magazine named Commodity Manager Steve DeFord to its Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) All-Star Team.

The introduction and continued use of our supplier portal is another reason the Supply Chain organization has celebrated success in recent years. Launched in 2003, the supplier portal serves as a point of information exchange between our company and our suppliers, which ultimately drives efficiency by limiting manual transactions.

"We've seen a lot of business growth from a procurement standpoint since the launch of our supplier portal," said Krotz. "Our tactical procurement process is now automated, which means the information flows seamlessly to suppliers based on the needs identified in SAP [our enterprise resource planning system]. This has allowed us to shift our resources to design activities and cost reduction initiatives. It also will provide us with a competitive advantage as we face rising energy and commodity prices."

Ulrike Limmer, a strategic buyer at our facility in Heidelberg, Germany, said standardizing the way in which our company works with and evaluates suppliers has been extremely beneficial.

"Having all processes match across our company is a big strength," said Limmer, who joined Rockwell Collins in January 2007. "It's not only easier for us, but it's easier for our suppliers. It keeps things uniform and provides our suppliers with one message."

Evaluating our suppliers

Because Lean Electronics plays such an important role in our company's continued success, Rockwell Collins has established several Lean objectives that suppliers are required to maintain.

Photo by Paul Marlow, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Increasing efficiencies — Phil Krotz, director of Supply Chain Services at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, joined our company more than two decades ago. During that time, our company has received various forms of industry recognition for increasing efficiencies.

According to Krotz, supplier scorecards, which are available via the supplier portal, provide our suppliers real-time access to performance data, such as quality and delivery metrics. This allows our suppliers a method to determine what improvements need to be made to meet expectations.

"We want all of our suppliers to obtain that maximum level of achievement on the scorecard, at which point we will reward them with more business," explained Krotz. "Our major customers such as Airbus and Boeing expect our company to aggressively manage the performance of our suppliers and sub-tier suppliers."

Senior leaders within the Rockwell Collins Supply Chain organization also believe it's extremely important to recognize suppliers for a job well done. So, for the past 25 years, our company has presented the top supplier with the President's Award during our annual supplier conference. Several other "Supplier of the Year" awards also are presented in various categories at this event, which is held in Cedar Rapids.

This year, the top award was presented to Altera Corporation of San Jose, Calif. According to Weiss, Altera's programmable semiconductor solutions enable companies to rapidly and cost-effectively innovate, differentiate and win in their market segments.

Sherri Stormo, a manager in Engineering Procurement at our facility in Cedar Rapids, says bringing in the right suppliers, such as Altera Corporation, is extremely important because it reduces program risk.

"We want to focus on suppliers that align with our business processes," said Stormo, who acts as a liaison between the Supply Chain organization and engineering programs. "We also want suppliers that are in it for the long haul because many of our designs are in production for several years."