Mouser ramps up distribution centre, AI
As Mouser ramps up the expansion of its global distribution centre in the US, Pete Shopp talks to eeNews Europe about AI and the prospects for Europe at the electronica exhibition in Munich this week.
“At a recent executive conference in the US it was interesting that no one seems excited about next year, no one is sure when demand is going to pick up,” said Pete Shopp, who is senior vice president of business operations at Mouser.
“Doing a deep dive, most of the growth is in semiconductors that distributors don’t carry, AI chips, so all the increase is in support of AI and almost all of that comes from Nvidia. There’s very few specialist customers for those chips but in those particular product lines, most of the additional components are going through distribution.”
“Europe seems to be the slowest to recover, which took us by surprise this year. It seems like Germany was the steadiest market for the longest but they will be the last to recover and that’s a huge market,” he said.
While the analog and discrete markets are flat, “military and aerospace are doing great, and IPE (interconnect, passive and electromechanical) is seeing steady growth, certainly for US.”
“The things about Mouser is we are shipping to more customers, more items, more lines shipped than ever before. With new product introduction (NPI) its is all about the part numbers and what that means is engineering is happening but the production is not there yet.”
The semiconductor cycle is always a challenge for the industry and distribution.
“Our semiconductor suppliers think once it turns it will be a mess again. They don’t have the same capacity and labour to turn up the capacity. Ultimately because of the cycles there will be longer lead times, higher ASPs, everyone is telling different story, the recovery has been the next quarter for the last eight quarters.”
Inventory is a key issue, as the build up has caused chip makers such as Infineon major problems.
“We have 1.2m parts and have the broadest inventory for NPI, that’s what will lead to future growth and that’s what our suppliers want,” he said. “We are talking to some suppliers who want us to take more inventory, but really we have been strategic in the inventory we are carrying, making it deeper in strategic areas as well as opening new offices for new markets in Lithuania and Melbourne, Australia, at the end of 2023, so we are seeing the results of that. With more NPI we have a couple of targets outside Europe that we are considering.”
This comes as Mouser readies the expansion of its global distribution centre in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.
“We started a building project a couple of years ago and that is finished and we are building the inside, We are adding 48 more vertical lift modules in the building, the ASRS automated racking and pallet system is being built right now with new shipping lines, and all of that will be in preparation of the future. Once its fully built it will double our capacity. That’s one of the great things of being part of TTi and Berkshire Hathaway, we have the resources to think long term, to have the capacity for when the business will turn.”
Mouser is also using new technologies including AI in the plant expansion.
“We have a couple of projects we are testing for the new building, Some if it is around smart reading labels so the receiving process can be more automated. We want to get to the stage where the box comes in, everything is received and it finds its way to where it needs to be, so we are working with a couple of companies on that,” he said.
“We have 1200 suppleirs and all the labels are a little different so part of our AI is training the engine to read the different labels.”
“We are also being smarter where we stock thing, We have always focused on the velocity of a part and we want to gather additional data and evaluate what future parts will be popular based on the projects we see now and what people are looking at, so you see the parts going out. We want the system to say a part should move to the VLM or to the autostore, or upper shelves, and not have someone pore over the numbers to work it out.”
“We are also trying to make the system smarter by understanding how much space a part takes on the shelf, whether it can sit in a small bin or in its own carton, to help pick the location that way.”
Mouser is also using AI to analyse other data
“Every once in a while we try to develop smartness around returns – are customers returning more than they have done, so its more about identifying it. AI is telling to look at it closer. We are always worried if an EMS is returning parts, and quite a few distributors and manufacturers have a lot of parts on the shelf and from a finiacial standpoint is there going to be obsolescence, are customers going to want the parts, there’s a lot of discussion about that,” he said.
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