Grow Company, Reduce Cost, Deliver Real Value with Setech Supply Chain Solutions

The Setech journey began in 1982 as a manufacturer of automation equipment and aircraft components and then medical implants and surgical hands tools. But the company today is known for its reliability- centered supply chain solutions, which increase equipment availability through process-driven best practices in Indirect Materials Management.

The company’s programs supported by Certified Reliability Leaders are completely flexible and can be configured to client requirements, scope, and scale – from Consulting to Software-as-a-Service to fully Outsourced Solutions. Setech’s Pure Integrator model for Indirect Materials Management and Reliability as a Service model truly aligns with the best interests of its clients, focused on reliability, reduced spend, and optimizing assets to increase client profitability.

Having begun his journey with Setech as a consultant, Bill Shriver today leads the company as its CEO. We recently interviewed him to know more about how the company is leading when it comes to delivering quality solutions in its target sectors. Read on for the excerpts from the interview.

Q. Can you explain about your services in brief?

Setech is a full outsourced Indirect Material Manager as well as a supply chain solution service provider that has been in business since 1988 (sourcing to requisitioning to inventory management to payables). Over the past 30 years we have a proven history of providing a value generation on a 2:1 ratio. That means whenever a customer invests in SETECH we will in turn generate twice that much in savings.

Q. How successful was your first project? Share the experience.

Our first project was at the GM Saturn plant in Springhill, TN. It was a great experience for a relatively new company like ours to be entrusted by such a large customer as GM. They truly have been a great partner and are still a valued customer to this day.

Like any new startup we had many challenges that were demanding but they were also very important in the process of creating our model for Indirect Material management. This led us directly to our latest project where we successfully helped GM and Ventec launch into their new ventilator business last year in less than 3 weeks! GM CEO has recognized that effort as a key to changing corporate culture!

Q. Unanticipated Costs, Potential for Setbacks, Integration Difficulties, and Quality Suffers are an inevitable part of SCM. How do you overcome these without disrupting the business flow?

I think the best way to deal with these is to always try and plan ahead as well have contingency plans for unplanned setbacks. You must always anticipate that there are going to be issues that arise as it’s just the nature of the business we are in. We have developed a unique item-driven approach that we call Plan for Every Part or P4EP, which has served our customers very well.

Q. How do you meet consumer demands and minimize overall costs involved in the supply management chain?

Establishing the demand itself – it is the key to not only cost minimization but to maximizing uptime as well. This is where it’s very important to develop a partnership with your customer to understand their schedules and volumes in order to have the right part at the right time and at the right price!

Q. There is a talent war in logistics and supply chain management. Among the scarce pool of talent, how do you manage to source the best?

We start by always making sure we retain the talent we already have by making sure we are a workplace of choice. This alone attracts talent as people want to work somewhere that is willing to make an investment in their talent. We also look for talent at colleges and universities by seeking and bringing on interns that we can mentor and hopefully add to our talent pool once they graduate.

Q. A supply chain network performs its best when all its departments and operations function efficiently. How can we improve visibility and working procedure through your solutions to support organizations?

The great thing about our solution is not only is it 100% transparent to all facets but the ease of use of our ERP system procedurally. Our customers have full use of our ERP system at their location and can see and look up anything that a SETECH employee can see. They can get instant status on their orders and also see what is in stock at their location or at other locations within the same customer network.

We provide constant training for our customers and always have representatives on site to make sure our program runs efficiently, and we make it a point to meet with our customer at the start of each day to understand any needs they may have that day outside the norm. Constant communication is key to making sure everyone within the organization is on the same page.

Q. How has emergence of new technologies contributed to your success? How do you update your solutions?

Technology has been key to our success and its continued evolution demands that we
always stay abreast of new emergences. Our business is heavily data-driven. The ability to process large amounts of data in very short frame of time allows us to meet our customers’ demand, ensures proper stocking levels, identify spikes, and ability to track material in real time. These are just a few of the things technology has driven for us. We are strong proponents of continuous improvement through training, development and identifying best practices and listening to the customer on what they feel their needs are and how we can develop a solution for that need.

Q. How do you market your services?

We market our solutions in a variety of ways. The internet, of course, is key to marketing through our website and social media, but we also like to market ourselves at in-person events like supply chain

Conferences and trade shows, where we can interact with people face-to-face. This, of course, has been challenging this past year with COVID but we are now starting to see the live events reemerge. We have also participated in some virtual events this past year, which has been a new experience for us.

Q. Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

We are in the midst of launching our new cloud-based ERP system (MySupplyHub). We have spent a great deal of time this past year developing it. This system is something we are very excited about, and feel is a game changer in managing Indirect Materials.

Q. What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?

I feel strongly that with our current investment and development in our new ERP (MySupplyHub) we are poised to emerge in 2022 with significant growth. Projects that may have been put on hold are now starting back up and with the supply chain issues we have all experienced being recognized on a global level we feel our offering and solutions will drive great value especially in the Indirect Materials facet.

Bill Shriver, CEO

Bill has over 30 years of experience developing and implementing supply chain management solutions. He is an executive alum of General Motors, Vice President at Capgemini and Partner at EY. His passion remains to continue to prove that domestic manufacturers can compete globally and to make these successful clients famous.

“Our business is heavily data-driven. The ability to process large amounts of data in very short frame of time allows us to meet our customers’ demand, ensures proper stocking levels, identify spikes, and ability to track material in real time.”