KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The most common reason engineers switched to Mercury Wire was not price or quality. Their previous supplier stopped responding.
- Most customers arrive used to bulk ordering months in advance because their suppliers required it. That is a supplier constraint, not an industry requirement.
- One-day lead time is possible. The key is Kanban inventory staged before the production line calls for it.
- A material problem caught before production starts is not a problem. It only becomes one if no one checks.
- PPAP is available for customers who need formal production qualification, not just a sample approval.
A Q&A with Andrelis Ramirez, Product Manager, Mercury Wire
Most of what gets written about cable assembly manufacturing is written from the outside. Spec sheets, capability lists, certifications. What is harder to find is a straight answer from someone who actually builds the assemblies, manages the programs, and catches problems before they ship.
Andrelis Ramirez is Product Manager at Mercury Wire, where she works on cable assembly programs for OEM customers across demanding industries. We asked her the questions that come up most often from engineers evaluating assembly suppliers, and a few that rarely appear on an RFQ but probably should.
What should customers know about Mercury Wire’s value-added assembly services?
That we tailor our services to what they actually need. We have made-to-order programs, and we carry Kanban inventory in-house to manage the supply chain for customers who need that kind of setup. We handle product design and prototyping, and we can drop ship across the globe. Lead times range from one day out to weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on what the customer’s production schedule requires.
It is not one approach for every customer. We figure out what fits. Some customers want to set up a release schedule where they send a purchase order in the morning and the product ships that afternoon. Others need quarterly planning. Both are possible. See how we approach delivery and inventory management.
Walk me through what happens the first time a new assembly customer comes to Mercury Wire.
First, we educate them on what we can offer. If they can visit us, we show them the facility and walk through what we do. If not, we do it over a call or video meeting. At the same time, we are reviewing their specification, understanding their needs and pain points, and making sure our capabilities align with what they need long term.
After that, we get into the engineering side. We set up the specifications, source materials, and build out the supply chain pipeline. Then we validate. We send a prototype sample and the customer approves it, or we revise until it is right.
For customers who need a more formal qualification, we also offer PPAP Production Part Approval Process. We take a defined sample from the production run and verify that our process is producing to spec consistently. Some customers require it. We are set up to do it. Learn more about our engineering and prototyping process.
What is the most common problem you see when a customer comes to Mercury Wire from another supplier?
Delivery. That is the biggest one: shorter lead times and faster turnaround on quotes. Price comes up sometimes, but not always.
In the last year, the biggest thing we have been hearing is responsiveness. Customers come to us because their previous supplier stopped getting back to them. It takes too long to get a response, or there is no response at all. That has been the most common reason in the past year, by a significant margin.
When you are managing a production program and your supplier goes quiet, every day without an answer is a day your schedule is at risk. Engineers do not have time for that.
How do you figure out what a customer’s delivery schedule should look like?
Sometimes they are not sure themselves, because they have only worked with suppliers who have long lead times. They are used to placing large orders far in advance to make sure they have enough material to keep their production line running. When we start talking about smaller quantities coming in more frequently, it can feel unfamiliar at first.
But once they understand how just-in-time works, that they do not need 100,000 feet sitting in a warehouse when they can get 10,000 feet when they need it, the picture changes. They carry less inventory. They have better cash flow. They are not sitting on liability they had to buy months in advance. Once that lands, they tend to appreciate it.
What does the ongoing relationship with a customer look like week to week?
We are in regular contact. Calls, video meetings, emails. We send delivery notices so customers always have tracking on their product. If there are challenges on a new product or we run into a difficulty in production, we give updates to the engineering team on their end so they know where things stand and when to expect resolution.
On a weekly basis, we are usually either calling a customer, receiving a call, or exchanging emails. The goal is that they always know where their product is. No surprises.
Tell me about a time when something in an assembly design did not look right before production started.
We check all incoming materials before we build. In one case, we had a material that had changed. It had shrunk. We did not realize it until it was time to build, and when the team tried to use it, it did not fit the fitting it was supposed to go into.
We had to stop, go back to the design, and change the hole specification so the material would fit and stay consistent throughout the life of the assembly. The size had to hold up after processing, not just on the day it was made. It was extra work upfront, but it was the right call. If we had forced it and shipped, the customer would have had a field failure.
That is the kind of thing you only catch if you are actually checking your materials before production starts, not just trusting that what arrived matches what was ordered.
What is something most people outside of assembly do not understand about what it takes to build a cable assembly that performs reliably?
The materials have to be designed and specified properly for the application. That part is easy to skip over, especially when cost is a pressure. But when you have the right materials matched to the real requirements, the temperature range, the environment, the mechanical load, you end up with a product that is reliable for years.
We work with customers on material selection. Cost comes into play, and we help find options that are economical but still perform in the conditions they actually face. The value-added services we offer include that engineering work, not just the build. You cannot shortcut on materials and expect the performance to hold. You have to do that work at the design stage.
Andrelis Ramirez is Product Manager at Mercury Wire in Spencer, MA, where the company has been engineering and manufacturing since 1967.
