Deadline mastery keeps Epec parts in demand

ALL IN THE TIMING: From left, Ed Paradise, production manager, and Randy Broyles, shipper, ready an order at Epec Engineering Technologies. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
ALL IN THE TIMING: From left, Ed Paradise, production manager, and Randy Broyles, shipper, ready an order at Epec Engineering Technologies. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

Those cunning airline-service maps that show spidery routes arcing around the globe would look extra-hairy and mutable if applied to the everyday supply-chain activity of Epec Engineering Technologies, based in New Bedford.

In business since 1952, Epec designs and builds custom, build-to-print products such as printed circuit boards and custom battery packs for all sectors of the electronics industry. Parts designed and made by Epec are used in commercial, medical and defense industries; they could be powering your cellphone, garage-door opener or weapons for the military.

Delivery deadlines are critical for a business supplying parts for other manufacturers, especially at a time when manufacturers try their utmost to keep inventories trim and to receive parts just in time for processing.

Kendall Paradise, president of Epec, said there are other businesses doing what Epec does, but added, “I don’t know of anyone that goes to the level we go to in managing the supply chain and giving customers what they expect.”

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She noted that shipments for Epec are in motion every day of the year in the UPS system, just one of the carriers Epec uses.

Epec serves 3,500 customers, Paradise said, with 117 employees at company headquarters in New Bedford, as well as other offices and factories in Denver; Largo, Fla.; Toronto, and Wales in the United Kingdom. The company’s logistics and supply-chain management center is in Shenzhen, China.

All products, such as circuit boards, battery packs, fans and motors, cable assemblies and user interfaces are custom-designed and built in factories Epec owns or by other manufacturers, under closely monitored and tested conditions. About 75 percent of the products that Epec designs and assembles have some parts made in Asia, including factories in China and Vietnam.

The company is able to lower total-system costs by consolidating inventory across the entire supply chain.

“We have a wide range of delivery options that allow us to serve a large network of customers,” Paradise said. That matches a range of products, as well as customers far-flung by geographical location. Timing of deliveries is always crucial. Paradise said Epec is working on a product now that a customer needs for a biannual trade show in just a few months.

Two important metrics that Epec uses to manage its supply chain are on-time delivery and cost of freight as a percentage of sales. From 2014 to the end of 2015, Epec wrote in its application for the 2016 PBN Manufacturing Awards program, the company reduced its cost of freight by 2 percent – a significant amount – by working with freight servicers to analyze the best shipping methods. One change was a shift from using LCL (less than container load) to full containers for ocean shipments.

Epec has an important relationship with UPS. In an article on the UPS website from 2012 and in an accompanying podcast discussion, UPS said it had helped Epec save money by consolidating shipments coming from multiple locations within Asia. “Instead of 35 separate shipments, we might have only one now,” Paradise said in the application. “It’s allowed us to save at least 15 percent on shipping.”

Epec also lauded the helpfulness of UPS’ on-time predictability. Paradise said Epec knows at what time and how much product to expect from twice-daily UPS deliveries, and therefore can plan its own staffing accordingly. Businesses don’t want to have inventory sitting around, Paradise said, and careful planning with UPS means that Epec receives on Monday materials shipped from Asia the previous Friday, and then pushes the product out its own door by Tuesday.

Epec’s and UPS’ fine tuning of shipping means that Epec is three to five days faster to market than its competitors, according to Maurice Mitchell, a UPS account manager.

Paradise added, “Getting product as soon as possible from our suppliers and to our customers is a key factor in our growth.” •

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