Luminovo and EPN Enter a New Era of PCB Procurement with Automatic PCB Pricing
May 8, 2024
Read how PCB manufacturer EPN was able to automate their entire PCB procurement process thanks to Luminovo’s innovative Automatic PCB Pricing, and how you could benefit from it too.
Luminovo welcomes EPN as the first partner to join the supplier network using our innovative Automatic PCB Pricing feature. This feature, a cornerstone of Luminovo’s PCB analysis and pricing engine, enables PCB suppliers to integrate seamlessly into the digital supply chain by automating price calculations.
This partnership promises to bring significant advantages to both parties. EPN has been using the Luminovo PCB configure-price-quote (CPQ) software since 2021 for internal quoting and now gains a digital connection to over 150 Luminovo EMS and OEM customers. With EPN joining the partner network as a supplier, Luminovo customers get access to a new PCB manufacturer with pricing for small to medium batch sizes.
What is automatic PCB pricing and how does it work?
Automatic PCB Pricing is a pivotal component of the Luminovo offer for PCB suppliers, powered by cutting-edge PCB digital thread technology. This technology structures all necessary quotation data into a digital dataset, ready for further processing. The setup involves a two-stage process where PCB suppliers first
define their technological capabilities, and then
set up their price calculations within the Luminovo pricing engine.
This setup not only streamlines the validation of customer requests and manufacturability checks, but also automates price calculations, thereby enhancing the efficiency dramatically.
Impact on EPN as a PCB manufacturer
By connecting to Luminovo via a digital Interface (API), EPN now directly engages with over 150 active Luminovo customers, streamlining the request for quotation (RfQ) process. This new feature allows for an instant manufacturability check and real-time price calculation, which previously required significant time and effort from EPN’s sales and engineering teams. Now, this process is fully automated, enhancing efficiency and responsiveness.
This technology is intended to automate up to 80% of requests. This target reflects a significant shift towards automation in the industry, aimed at reducing the manual workload on the supplier side. Currently, complex requests that involve special materials or specifications that are not covered by the digital framework still require manual intervention. However, with the integrated quote request functionality, even these more complex requests can be managed with just a few clicks in Luminovo.
For EPN, the adoption of Automatic PCB Pricing is already reducing the workforce needed to handle RfQs sent directly through Luminovo. The reduced need for manual quotes allows EPN’s sales and engineering personnel to focus more on handling and supporting complex projects. Automatic PCB Pricing will enable EPN to process a higher volume of requests more efficiently, while attracting new customers from Luminovo's growing customer base.
Why this matters to procurement teams
The procurement of PCBs is a complex and often manual process. With costs for PCBs amounting to 8-12% of the total project cost, this is usually the most critical and expensive component in the project, especially for prototypes. Mistakes in ordering can lead to costly delays and reworks. Traditional PCB procurement processes are fraught with potential errors, requiring a deep understanding of circuit board manufacturing and precise communication between designers and suppliers. Luminovo’s PCB module simplifies this process significantly. Features like the digital PCB specification form, automatic design for manufacturing (DFM) analysis, and automated price calculations allow procurement teams to specify, analyse, and adjust their PCB requirements easily and accurately in real time, ensuring frictionless communication along the supply chain.
The future of PCB procurement
Looking ahead, Luminovo is committed to digitising the electronics supply chain, enhancing connections among businesses, and improving collaboration and procurement processes across the industry.
With Automatic PCB Pricing, Luminovo is not only enabling PCB suppliers like EPN to streamline their operations but also empowering procurement teams with tools that ensure accuracy, speed, and efficiency in the ordering process.
Join the revolution
Luminovo's automatic PCB pricing feature represents a significant technological advancement for the PCB industry, promising to streamline operations for suppliers and procurement teams. As more suppliers and purchasers adopt these digital tools, the industry can look forward to a more connected, efficient, and responsive future.
Are you a PCB supplier interested in leveraging Luminovo's innovative digital tools? Or are you a procurement professional aiming to refine your PCB procurement process? Contact us at partnerships@luminovo.com to discover more or to become part of our expanding network of partners. Let's work together to revolutionise electronics procurement.
A big thank you to our partner EPN for embracing Luminovo's new technology and joining us as one of the forward-thinking PCB suppliers.
About EPN
EPN, part of the Finmasi group PCB Division, is a German PCB manufacturer specializing in double-sided and multilayer PCBs. As an East German medium-sized company, EPN is characterized in particular by speed of response, flexibility, direct contact, transparency and customer loyalty. EPN's engineers are available to assist their customers already in the design phase with the aim of optimizing the PCB design for the production and subsequent assembly of electronic components, ensuring the best performance at the lowest possible cost. Fast quotation processes, a rapid production and delivery service enable EPN's customers to receive prototypes of their PCBs in record time. This complete service also extends to the production and delivery of series batches, from very small to medium series.
