The BOM audit in detail

The cost check on the critical items runs from €2,000 to €5,000, the full assessment of the complete bill of materials from €5,000 to €8,000, and a follow-on implementation project starts at €10,000. The figure is a fixed price in the engagement brief, alongside the number of items and the delivery date; the potential check that precedes it is free of charge. What can come back is shown by the scanner swap: procurement cost on the most expensive component down by 25 per cent, and around €20,000 of software spend avoided.

By putting a figure on every line item instead of negotiating the total: where the component actually comes from, how many second sources exist, what buying direct costs and what the switch would take in engineering effort. In the scanner case the most expensive component turned out to be a relabelled OEM module from Guangzhou, bought through two intermediaries at €33.61; at volume pricing direct from the manufacturer it was around €25. The saving did not come from a negotiation but from someone tracing the chain back to the factory and asking the manufacturer directly, in this case in Mandarin.

In the format you already keep it in. An Excel sheet, an ERP export or a PDF is enough; I convert the list into my format, not the other way round. If your bill of materials has gaps because individual items are only carried as an ODM assembly, that is not a reason to stop — it is usually a finding in itself.

Thirty minutes of conversation in which you name the type of component, for example camera sensor, optics or focus drive. Back you get an order of magnitude: how many alternative suppliers are worth considering and what saving is realistically on the table. The check works without confidential data. An NDA can be signed for it on request.

Every item is assessed across four dimensions, weighted at 40 per cent switching cost, 30 per cent single-source risk, 20 per cent supplier concentration and 10 per cent regulation. That produces the severity score, the score produces the ranking and the ranking produces the report. So every line carries a figure rather than a traffic-light colour, and the origin of that figure can be traced.

In the full assessment and in the implementation project the firmware deep dive is included (it does not apply to pure hardware); in the cost check it is not. I look at the codebase for vendor-specific integrations, proprietary protocols and architectural decisions that prevent substitution, including embedded models and inference runtimes. The result is a prioritised refactoring map with an hour estimate for each replacement. If your product is pure hardware, this step is dropped.

No. Most engagements run remotely on the basis of documentation and photographs. On request or where needed, I am happy to visit you on site at your premises. An on-site review of the supplier is also available as the option “On site in Asia”, for example if you want to meet a supplier or see the factory.

Yes, where the analysis uncovers a concrete supplier problem that can be resolved directly. I speak to your suppliers in their language and, where necessary, on site at their premises, about price leverage, technical clarification or the qualification of an alternative. As a step of its own that is the option “Supplier negotiation”; the purely technical clarification with a manufacturer’s engineers is also available separately from the audit.

Then the substitution map is the part of the report that counts: qualified alternative suppliers and components with the technical effort a switch requires, plus the status of each candidate. In the ongoing FPGA engagement the part from a US manufacturer is not available at any authorised distributor; the substitution map shows there what a redesign onto a Chinese FPGA costs (around six months of development time) and what buying on the broker market demands in verification effort.

You can implement it on your own, which is what it is written for: a figure for each item, named candidates, named switching effort. If implementation pays off and you lack the capacity, the implementation project is the next step, with a substitution roadmap, qualification of the alternatives and support through to introduction. The aim is approved second sources, where technically and economically feasible, not a recommendation.

On request, ongoing support: quarterly reassessment, monitoring of end-of-life notices and ongoing contact with your suppliers. A bill of materials ages, because prices, lead times and availability change; the report is therefore a snapshot with a shelf life. I discuss the terms at the report handover, not before.

The cost check fits when the bill of materials is small, the budget limited or time is pressing on a single component; it reviews the critical items and answers whether the full assessment is worthwhile. The full assessment takes every item fitted and is the normal case; it includes the firmware deep dive and the round in front of management, purchasing and engineering. The implementation project comes after that, when implementation pays off. We discuss which package fits your case in the free intro call.