More Information About the BSM System
Order Placement
- Customers place their orders online with our system by uploading their Bill of Materials (BOM), Gerber files, and placement information.
- Then, our system guesses a part match for each component. The customer approves the matches, or changes any incorrect ones. We then provide real-time pricing and availability from Digikey and
Mouser, highlighting any unavailable parts.
- The customer can then select an alternate part (if one is available), choose to not have that part included in the assembly, or ship you the part themselves. Most customers will
find only a few line items are unavailable, greatly simplifying the process.
- The customer also provides information about their PCB. We use that information to request a quote
from our PCB supplier.
- We then use your formulas to generate pricing and provide a quote.
- The customer completes the order by providing us with their credit card information.
Order Fulfillment
Once an order is placed:
- We charge the customer's credit card the full amount of the order.
- Our system places orders with Digikey, Mouse, and our PCB supplier to be shipped to you, the manufacturer. We pay them, so you never need to handle parts procurement.
- The customer ships any parts they are supplying to you.
- We provide you with an AVL BOM, a Manufacturing BOM, any additional manufacturing notes, and the Gerber files.
- Upon recieving the components, you build the assembly. We pay you the assembly share of the order.
Control Your Customer Relationships
Blue Sky Labs does not offer contract manufacturing services. We do not compete directly with you, and you maintain full control over your customer relationships.
For example, a customer of ABC Manufacturing finds out about a new prototyping service that ABC is offering. He or she will go to www.abcmanufacturing.com, and find a link to ABC's new service. The link points to the BSM System at prototypting.abcmanufacturing.com. Here, the customer uses the BSM ordering system to create and place an order, while viewing it with ABC branding. There is even a separate merchant account, so ABC's name appears on the customer's credit card statements.
3 Levels of Integration
To better serve our manufacturing customers' needs, we have provided 3 levels of integration with the BSM System.
- Level 1 Minimal Integration:
At this level, setup is very fast. We provide you with a manufacturer's account. The site is changed to take on your branding. We setup a merchant account, and we enter your shipping address into our system. You will be able to recieve orders by email or visiting the website. Financial summaries will be available online.
- Level 2 Inventory and Financial Integration:
We can integrate the BSM System with your existing infrastructure. This will allow you to use in-house inventory (if you so choose) before placing orders with our distributors. We can also provide information to your financial and reporting systems.
- Level 3 Process Integration:
The final stage of integration is using the information available through our system to improve your manufacturing efficiency. Prototypes have traditionally been hard to manage, because of their low volumes and high variability. When the information available in the BSM System is integrated in to your process designs, we can significantly improve your productivity.