BKW makes it quicker and easier for companies to get their products to market, and we help companies maintain their competitive advantage.
How do we do that? Here are the answers to the most popular questions we’ve been asked
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Are you consultants?
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We are a team of hands-on professionals spanning Supply Chain, Engineering and Operations Strategy. We firmly believe that the only way to provide true value with any business challenge is to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty, which is beyond the typical mandate of consulting. After evaluating your current situation and providing recommendations, our team will work with yours to implement new processes and/or design.
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Are you a contract manufacturer?
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No. However, we can help you to find and evaluate the right contract manufacturers for your specific product and production volume. We help people manage their contract manufacturers to ensure that they can maintain direct control of their operations, products and business reputations with applied education, project management and experience.
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What is supply chain?
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Supply Chain, as an integrated system is everything in-between commonly know disciplines such as Finance, Sales, Marketing and Engineering. It is the connective tissue that adapts, integrates, synchronizes, validates and executes. Supply Chain is the art and science of getting things done effectively, and it is the system from which information for building competitive advantage in a company’s operations strategy is extracted and verified.
The term “Supply Chain” in itself is misleading, since “supply” is just one aspect of many in the system. Value Chain may be a far better term since we’re ultimately talking about the managed integration of several disciplines to generate and deliver value for the customer. |
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Do you recommend using an ERP system to manage a supply chain?
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Yes. Supply Chains are filled with variability. On one single purchase item, cost can vary by volume, and by supplier. Costs associated with quality can also vary. Freight can vary by the service selected which is often driven by how fast you need something (demand). And finding those products in your warehouse can also be variable depending on attributes like colour, or source. Just one item can represent potentially hundreds of different combinations of variables in cost, time and quality, and this gets multiplied against every item in your supply chain. ERP is a centralized database that connects all this data so it can be understood and managed effectively in different business conditions and volumes.
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Can you manage our supply chain for us?
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Yes. For some of our customers that are not ready or able to purchase and manage their own ERP, we can host their data as a separate company on our platform. When we do this, our customers have the same access as they would in their own ERP, and we apply our experience and resources to manage their supply chains as an extension of their company.
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Do you send products offshore?
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Generally, no. Many companies are unaware of how many products can be produced right here within North America (if not within Ontario) at greater speed and less overall cost than offshore. Canada primarily produces low-volume, high value products where precision is essential. The resources exist within North America to efficiently and competitively support those products. Local support means increased time to market and lower landed (“all-in”) cost. There are some exceptions, and when those exist, we ensure our customers approach those with the knowledge they need to have a successful outcome.
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Do you have supply partners for various requirements?
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Our team at BKW has cultivated many relationships across multiple industries over our decades of experience, however we do not default to these as a “one size fits all” approach with a pre-built supply chain and partners already in place. Instead, we build supply chains suited to your specific business level, volume and product needs, and we build this with you collaboratively. This also allows us to work with your existing partners and suppliers. We believe our customers should remain in full control of their projects and we enable that with applied education, supplier selection and evaluations to empower educated strategic decision making for our customers.
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What industry are you focused on?
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We support multiple manufacturing industries. We have experience in automotive, defence, medical, electronics/tech, industrial automation and equipment manufacturing and batch/process manufacturing (for example, food products) to name just a few. The essential rules of design, engineering and supply chain and how they need to integrate to be effective, apply across industries.
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Who are your customers?
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We work with anyone who manufactures (or intends to manufacture) a physical product. Most often these are SME’s – Small and Medium Enterprises. We exist to help companies do more with what they have and build their competitive advantage.
We work with Contract Manufacturers (CM’s), and Service Providers to help them improve their own operations, and to help them work with their own customers by assisting those companies to develop effective requirements, specifications and manufacturable designs that exceed the core skills of any particular CM. We work with Investors and Stakeholders to provide risk mitigation, and to develop structured and measurable strategies and execution support to get products to production. |
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Can you support products that are already in production?
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Yes. We optimize existing products where supply chain, market or economic conditions have changed from the original intent and we bring those products back to effective production. We also provide support to optimize existing operations for those products. As with all our services, we do this with a system approach governed by the requirements of the Business Case.
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We already have contract manufacturers and/or a design firm. Can you work with them?
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Yes. We help manage contract manufacturers and third-party relationships, and we collaborate with those firms to ensure a balance of integration across internal and external resources that aligns with the business objectives of our customers. We help our customers to remain in control of their own products, costs and operations.
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