Over the last three years, it has become painfully obvious that unexpected risks can erupt into massive, costly supply chain disruptions. First, the pandemic shut down economies and markets worldwide. Then, consumer demand rebounded in ways that defied historical patterns, leading to logistics congestion, labor shortages, and semiconductor allocations for automakers. Then a deep freeze shut down Texas—Texas! Then Delta and Omicron defied hopes that the pandemic was easing. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and triggered a global commodities crisis. Then U.S. tensions with China boiled over into policies and restrictions that will fundamentally reshape semiconductor value chains and the myriad types of products that require chips.
As a result of all this costly turmoil, supply chain managers face increased pressure to identify risks in their supply chains and to evaluate and score those risks against their internal risk appetite and risk tolerance thresholds. A key best practice is to identify risky suppliers—including those in the lower tiers, where most disruptions occur—and prioritize risk mitigations based on how a disruption of a part or material from that supplier would affect the OEM’s highest revenue products.
Supply chain management is a metrics-driven field, and in today’s disruptive environment, the ability to measure supply chain risk and resilience via key metrics is crucial, especially when it comes to articulating the resiliency profile of your business. But supplier risk assessments are notoriously difficult and time consuming to conduct—both for the OEM’s staff and for suppliers. Fortunately, there are sophisticated vendor solutions in the marketplace; one of these is the Resilinc R Score®, a patented risk-scoring system that measures a supplier’s supply chain resiliency based on key metrics including performance, network resilience, transparency, continuity of supply, and risk program maturity.
Top 30 Most Resilient Suppliers in High Tech
After an audit of metrics and data spanning back to 2018, Resilinc recently released a list of the Top 30 Most Resilient Suppliers in the High-Tech Industry based on their Resilinc R Scores®. IBM, AT&T, Micron, Flex, and Marelli are just a few of the companies recognized. Each of the 30 companies on the list is a supplier to multiple high-tech OEMs and have been part of Resilinc’s network for many years. All scored well based on their high degree of transparency and ongoing collaboration with the OEM to provide supply chain intelligence down multiple tiers. This includes responding quickly with a yes/no impact status during a disruption and providing alternate sites when possible to reduce recovery time. They are all rated strong performers by their customers across operational metrics including business continuity planning and reliability.
Among the top 30, seven stand out because of their high degree of maturity in mapping multiple tiers of their own supply chains and working to build trust with these suppliers. They also leverage technology to improve visibility and foster collaboration with direct and sub-tier suppliers. They include:
- Nvidia Corp.
- Seagate Technology
- Keysight Technologies
- IBM Corp.
- Harman International
- Micron Technology
- Western Digital Corp.
Rounding out the top 30 are these 23 firms:
- Eaton Corp.
- Ericsson
- Honeywell International
- Marelli
- AT&T Inc.
- Flex
- Motorola Solutions
- AGC Inc. (formerly Asahi Glass Co. Ltd)
- Nidec
- Amphenol Corp.
- ROHM Semiconductor
- Kaifa Technology USA
- Parker Hannifin
- Murata
- Infineon Technologies
- STMicroelectronics
- TE Connectivity
- Marvell Technology, Inc.
- Diodes Inc.
- Maxim Integrated
- Panasonic
- Vishay Intertechnology Inc.
- Fujifilm Corp.
Here is what our CEO, Bindiya Vakil, had to say:
“It has been a tremendously challenging time for the high-tech sector; from semiconductor constraints and geopolitical concerns to extreme demand shifts, these companies have been operating in an increasingly disruptive environment. But despite all the challenges, the Top 30 have done a tremendous job navigating through it and collaborating with customers and with their direct and sub-tier suppliers alike, to identify problems quickly and mitigate issues proactively.
These companies are proving that collaboration, transparency, risk monitoring, supply chain mapping, and proactive mitigation are the keys to supply chain resilience. A big congratulations to the 30 winners.”
The Top 30 achieved the highest R Score® out of over 140,000 suppliers analyzed in the High-Tech, Electronics and Semiconductor supply chain. These companies are part of Resilinc’s mapped network and range from Tier 1 to Tier 5. Data and metrics to determine each supplier’s score are refreshed every quarter. More information on the Resilinc R Score® methodology can be found here.