Welcome to the Asset Leveling Tool at PartBridge.com.

Background

In March 2001 an OEM began evaluating ways to address the excess and obsolete parts held in inventory around their company. A team was formed and chartered with developing opportunities and processes, which would try and reduce inventory levels while maximizing return on the material. A couple of web-based tools were developed which allowed businesses within a company to "broadcast" excess parts out to the open broker market. One web-based tool called reParts was created and released between October 2001 through April 2002, although during the pilot phase it was mutually agreed the tool would not be further developed and implemented beyond the timeframe outlined. The tool was withdrawn from the web on April 12, 2002.

In reviewing reParts, the OEM summized if a tool were to be successful in the future, it would need to have several additional components beyond broadcast capabilities. It would need to include:

(1) Open and collaborative environment with visibility and inventory leveling throughout an OEM and its supply chain as well as offering excess on the open market.
(2) Visibility to both excess and shortages enabling the transfer of material within an OEM’s supply chain regardless of market conditions (excess or shortage).
(3) Negotiation process between buyers and sellers.

The OEM’s Asset Leveling Tool "PartBridge" was created with these features, in addition to a host of other valuable features and robust reporting capabilities offering visibility and control of both excess and shortages throughout the OEM and its supply chain partners. PartBridge was released on the Internet on April 29, 2002.

Supply Chain Partners

Today with more and more OEM’s relying on Contract Manufacturers to source materials and manage inventory levels to help drive down manufacturing costs, the supply chain is growing. Brokers have even become a part of an OEM’s supply chain offering commodities to those who need them while offering programs to help reduce excess and obsolete inventories.

PartBridge was developed to facilitate transactions among OEM’s and their supply chains and broadcast excess material out to the open market to maximize recovery. The premise is simple; work together in an open environment to optimize inventory opportunities with any participant willing to collaborate.

Currently, efforts are underway to engage the OEM’s Contract Manufacturers in using PartBridge as an extension of their total supply chain. Furthermore, contract manufacturers could extend inventory leveling throughout their own supply chain.

Consignment Programs

Brokers are offering new ways to handle the influx of excess inventory out in the market. Many offer consignment programs which provides an avenue to OEM’s which (a) reduces their excess inventory levels while (b) maximizing recovery value. A brokers does this by taking the inventory off the hands of the OEM once it’s been written off and moving the material into the broker’s warehouses, then attempt to sell and recover market value for any number of parts of behalf of the OEM. Often, any revenue recovered is shared. Although this inventory now resides with the broker, the OEM can pull back any inventory required since visibility remains available for the OEM.

How PartBridge.com Works

Primary users of the tool are Materials Buyers. Once they have logged onto PartBridge and completed the registration process and granted permissions to other participants they are ready to begin posting their excess and/or shortages. PartBridge offers an auto-matching feature, which matches against all "participants" excess and shortage postings. The tool reports back all matches to the buyer by creating "Buy Opportunities." The buyer can then decide whether he/she would like to submit an offer to the seller. Offers, counter-offers, sales acceptance and ship instructions are all managed within PartBridge. If additional information is needed prior to extending an offer, the buyer can directly communicate to the seller via email, fax or phone as all pertinent information associated with all opportunities is presented when the match occurs. Participants/Owners maintain all aspects of the data uploaded into PartBridge. They can choose to upload files at their convenience either by replacing all postings or appending to their existing postings.

Disposition – Sell vs. Recycle

For material not suitable for resale in the open market solutions are available. Micro Metallics Corp., a Noranda company, is one such solution. They have several facilities around the country which can provide asset recovery, assured destruction, precious metal recovery and environmentally sound recycle solutions.

Participation in PartBridge.com

PartBridge is available to OEM’s "Passive" Supply Chain participants free of charge. A monthly maintenance fee and/or per transaction fee is required and charged to all "Active" participants by the web developer, Excave Systems Consulting of Roseville, California. Any enhancements with any active participant of the PartBridge tool would be negotiated between Excave and the active participant.

Note: "Active" participants are those who post excess/shortages on to the tool and buy opportunities are presented to them, while "passive" participants create buy or sell opportunities through the tool’s search function.

To learn more about PartBridge.com, go to Contact Info

Marketing Communication (Word) for PartBridge.com's Asset Leveling Tool