Opportunity Type: Alternate Part Follow

Alternate Part Matching assists critical sourcing activities. It gives extra options for potential supplier negotiations. Validating the acceptability of alternate parts for critical processes is generally a very time-consuming process which is made easier in the LevaData Platform.

LevaData represents the alternate part opportunity in terms of savings. That savings is determined by comparing the Manufacturer Part Number (MPN) currently being sourced to available LevaData community data. In the community data, the MPN price is compared against matching Form, Fit, and Function (FFF) parts. These are different MPNs, but they can be exact replacements. Therefore, if significant savings is indicated to the user comparing a current MPN with a replacement part that is a FFF match - they should seriously consider it as a replacement. Users can open data sheets associated with the part and provide them to their engineer(s) to validate that it is an acceptable replacement.

Reviewing Alternate Part Opportunities

Filter to Only Alternate Part Opportunities

When in the Review Opportunities module, (1) open the controls and (2) pick the Alternate Part Opportunities Type, then (3) Apply.

Examine the Opportunities Table

The Opportunities table will by default be sorted by Opportunity ($) amount in descending order; however, you may also want to sort by Opportunity % to find a specific range of savings.

Clicking into an opportunity of this type will present the user with a comparison of the MPN currently being sourced against matching Form, Fit, and Function (FFF) part(s) that could replace that MPN at a significant cost savings.

Reviewing the Details of an Alternate Part Opportunity

In the top level of the opportunity details page, you can (1) see the amount of the opportunity in a comparative chart, and (2) select and action the opportunity.

Drilling into the details of a specific Alternate Part opportunity, the user can (1) click on Show me Alternate if they need to examine in detail the Form, Fit, Function (FFF) of the part for sourcing purposes. Also clearly defined is the (2) cost savings amount for switching to the recommended part. When available, the (3) lead time and years to end of life will be displayed.

In this example above, we can see that the recommended part has a 10% cost savings against the most expensive part in the split distribution in the lower table.

Show Me Alternates

For usability, the Show me Alternate link will open a new pop-up page to allow the user to review the Alternate Options on display and then be able to select the X in the upper right to close and return to the previously reviewed opportunity without losing your place.

When (1) scrolling right through the information on Alternate Options there is a (2) Data Sheet button to allow you to review specification information on any given part to ensure a FFF match.

This action will produce detailed information about the part in a full technical document, example below:

Reviewing Parts in Alternate Options

Users can also take advantage of our Alternate Options feature to fully review alternates available for a given MPN, or any other MPNs they wish to check. In this example, we can (1) copy the Current MPN from Review Opportunities and (2) Navigate to Alternate Options

Putting that same MPN into Alternate Options and searching gives us a full table interface of Alternate Options for this MPN which we can review and check against other benchmark pricing data to determine if these parts are suitable as sourcing alternatives.

Conclusion

You should now be comfortable reviewing Alternate Part Opportunities across the LevaData Platform to identify cost savings among FFF parts. These opportunities will present whenever your organization loads new part data into the LevaData Platform, and you should be inclined to review them at least as often as that occurs.