Interview
The Digi-Key warehouse
by-step guide that takes you through the process of making your own product beginning with the concept page as step one where they look at various types of product that they might be interested in. This is followed by the design phase. “We have a design tool called Scheme-it and it’s a good way to sketch out a board but not be refined. All these early pages support the early thinking in a project,” explains Larson.
It then moves on to the research process and on this page, hobbyists can find Product Training Modules (PTMs) where they have access to a few hundred in- depth or typical product tutorials that run from two to ten minutes. They then move on to the evaluation process where it will talk then through that. And then they can get involved with the design process. “Here, they are introduced to a simple design tool, Mentor Graphics, which has some high level design tools but also has a tool that is very good for someone who is doing something less elaborate,” said Larson.
The next step takes them through
prototyping which might be as far as the maker wants to go. However, if they want to go further they will be taken through how to fund their project if they were to take it commercial. Following that is marketing the product and then production which talks about the considerations an intricacies of production. The final two steps go through distribution and then how to support the product once it is in the hands of the customer.
“Although this is a separate site to Digi-
Key’s main site, it is fully supported by Digi-Key and it says this when you scroll to the bottom of the page,” Larson explains. “We have given the maker a site that is totally designed for them, totally focused on the interests and the needs of the maker. And they don’t only have access to all the product that’s introduced on the site but they can seamlessly access the 1.3 million products on the Digi-Key site.” Something else that makes Digi-Key different to other electronic component
distributors is that they do not print a catalogue. Larson said, “2011 was the last time we printed a catalogue and it was the UK catalogue that was the last to be printed. We still have a catalogue but it is online only because we knew that we would continue to grow our component base and our product offering. The last catalogue printed listed 300,000 components and was 3,300 pages and I could only bring one over to the UK with me because it was so big and heavy. Now five years later, we have more than four times as many parts as what was in the last printed catalogue and when you think of the environmental impact of printing it and how unpractical it would be. And now, we are able to change products or prices instantaneously.” Another reasonably unique aspect unique aspect of Digi-Key is that they only have one warehouse worldwide. “We have 3200 people that work at this warehouse. It’s true that having warehouses all around the world is useful to get something the next day but we
ship it the next day and the longest you have to wait to receive it is 48 hours and that is still very good. The biggest advantage of a single warehouse worldwide is that if you’re going to have a really broad product offering you have to aggregate worldwide demand. So if someone orders something, it might be possible that you might be sharing the product in one of your warehouses but the customer would have to get multiple shipments which, for the professional engineer or purchaser, it takes extra time, money and paperwork and often freight charges. So that’s the advantage of a single location.” The growth of Digi-Key promises another good year in 2017 and might see them move up the rank of the largest electronic component distributors in the world. With the ‘Digi-Key Difference’ driving the growth, these new initiatives that are being introduced will only see this increase.
www.digikey.co.uk
www.cieonline.co.uk
Components in Electronics
December 2016/January 2017 11
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