Blog
Building resilience from day one: Why supply chain strategy should start at the design phase
Flex companies
A trusted, resilient global supply chain is a critical component of bringing products to life for your customers. In the face of increasing uncertainty and disruption in the world, our diverse supply chain network, paired with our breadth of experience, expertise, and technologies, keeps production on track.
We can help you scale production, manage regional trade and manufacturing dynamics, and minimize risk. Together, we can sustainably build and deliver products that improve the world.
We help you manage the full product lifecycle — from design and manufacturing, to spare parts fulfillment and product repair, refurbishment, and recycling. Partnering with Flex enables you to answer critical questions such as:
And thanks to our know-how and long-term investments in supply chain networks and technologies, you can depend on us to deliver now and in the future.
In an unpredictable world, resilience is more than a buzzword — it is a guiding principle. See how our global scale and tactical agility help you deliver value to your customers.
You need a partner who can provide the advanced digital tools and create the visualized data landscape required to properly evaluate, manage, and make smarter, more-informed decisions.
Leverage our difference-making unique foresights gained from our extensive and diversified supplier network to quickly respond to changing market dynamics.
See what we’re doing to promote sustainability throughout the entire supply chain, including how we screen and partner with suppliers.
More than ever, it is crucial to have a trusted, resilient global supply chain network. We strive to make working with Flex as simple and valuable as possible for our suppliers.
In a world of extreme weather, trade disruptions, cyber threats, and unpredictable global events, resilience is more than a buzzword — it is a guiding principle.
Our team diffuses risk against known threats and prepares for large-scale interruptions. Investments in strong foundations and contingency planning help us install the right talent, infrastructure, tools, and culture to give you confidence in business continuity and a competitive edge.
Our strategic planning helps you carefully consider competing priorities. As you navigate resilience, total cost of ownership (TCO), and risk, our global scale and tactical agility helps deliver value to your customers, no matter the circumstance.
Managing your supply chain can be a juggling act. And keeping your eye on all the balls at once can feel impossible without help and proven expertise. We will help you create a more resilient supply chain that responds to constantly changing conditions. Our global supply chain solutions help you scale production, manage regional trade and manufacturing dynamics, and minimize risk. Plus, we provide real-time visibility into all the moving pieces of your supply chain. So, you never have to take your eye off what matters most: your business.
To create agility and true resilience, we have built one of the world’s largest and most diversified supply chains operating at scale across multiple industries.
Powering this massive, nimble network are 7,000+ supply chain professionals across our sites in approximately 30 countries who utilize strong relationships with a diverse base of 16,000 suppliers to source more than 1 million parts.
Our infrastructure, real-time supply chain data, and expertise around the world ensures we can respond quickly to instant changes in the dynamic supply chain landscape and keep production on track.
Resilience is not one size fits all, nor is it a single rigid approach. It is an ongoing, evolving process that continuously assimilates lessons learned, responds to the current environment, and looks ahead to potential issues in the future.
We constantly test and develop our flexibility, visibility, and collaboration capabilities from procurement through last mile delivery. Doing so allows us to perpetuate de-risking using mitigation strategies for our customers, suppliers, and markets.
Partner with us to create supply chain resilience, then streamline and optimize your full product lifecycle to deliver full value.
Our forward logistics and value-added fulfillment connects manufacturing to end customers across multiple channels. Our reverse logistics and circular economy solutions — a customized set of services inclusive of a repair, recovery, refurbishment, and recycling portfolio — correspond with your organizational goals while opening up new revenue streams.
When combatting rising tariffs, increased labor costs, geopolitical instability, and other macro challenges, leading brands have turned to regionalized supply chains as a valuable strategy to mitigate risk and increase flexibility.
And it is our diverse supply chain network, combined with our deep expertise and global footprint, that allows them to realize the benefits of regionalization.
We can help determine when and how to move closer to where you are located and help you leverage our in-region manufacturing and forward-logistics and value-added fulfillment capabilities.
We offer manufacturing at scale at approximately 100 sites across 30 countries. Our global presence provides you the flexibility of sourcing components and building products in region — or rapidly shifting production to other worldwide locations as demand or regulations change.
By creating one of the world’s largest and most diverse supply chain networks, we can respond to evolving regional, trade, and manufacturing dynamics.
Our scale and geographic breadth address logistical and sourcing challenges in any region across the globe.
We work closely with suppliers to understand how and where they source their materials.
Analyzing supply network data and presenting that information in an actionable manner enables us to build more resilient supply chains. Our supplier relationship management tools are built on Ivalua, allowing us to collaborate with suppliers on full end-to-end procurement, supply chain, and quality processes.
Our services meet the demands of most fulfillment networks in any region.
Agile capabilities in B2B, B2C, D2R, and D2C meet evolving end customer requirements while configure-to-order (CTO) postponement activities lower inventories, increase velocity, and ensure high fill rates to multiple channels.
Modern supply chains are complex, interconnected ecosystems where a single point of failure can cascade into significant operational and financial risk. In this dynamic landscape, effective decision-making strategies that bolster supply chain resiliency are a prerequisite for success.
Flex Pulse® provides advanced digital tools that transform raw data into actionable intelligence. With unprecedented visibility into your supply chain, you can identify potential risks and take proactive steps before problems arise.
Real-time visibility and advanced modeling transforms supply chain challenges into strategic opportunities, giving you the confidence to navigate uncertainty and drive business growth.
The Flex Pulse suite of intelligent supply chain tools is designed to optimize supply chain processes, enhance decision-making, and bolster resiliency in a dynamic global landscape:
Flex Pulse Actionable Insights provides robust data visualization and enables real-time supply chain management. The cloud-based intelligent software tool integrates feeds from more than 200 data sources to help you identify and navigate the most complex supply chain challenges.
We provide visibility down to the product level at any given factory. Stakeholders can access the same level of data precision and visibility whether they are physically located in one of our Pulse centers worldwide or logging in remotely through secure digital, mobile, or cloud-based technologies. This means our more than 7,000 supply chain professionals globally are always equipped with the insights they need to make intelligent decisions.
Actionable Insights continuously syncs, ensuring data collection and visualization that is as close to real-time as possible.
Should I manufacture my product in Mexico or Taiwan? What are my distribution and shipping trade-offs? Is the demand for my product short-term or long-term, and how can I optimize my delivery operations to accommodate demand flow? These complex calculations are often top of mind for every Flex manufacturing customer.
Flex Pulse Network Design enables Flex and our customers to manage high-level supply chain network design. The tool creates forecasting scenarios based on current and future projections of multiple factors, including estimated inflation rates, crude oil prices, labor costs, and other macroeconomic indicators. Our data-driven analyses and recommendations empower our customers to configure the optimal manufacturing and distribution footprint for unique profiles and distribution channels.
A significant portion of supply chain risks manifest in the design and product testing phases but are often overlooked until later in the planning and building phases. At this point, they can cause major complications and drastically increase costs. That’s why true supply chain resiliency requires early, proactive risk assessment rather than waiting until it’s too late.
Our Flex Pulse Risk Management automated analytics tool provides clear, quantifiable, and actionable insights into the part-level, identifying supply chain risks early in the lifecycle. The tool automatically assesses quotes, generates reports of potential risks, and provides recommendations for risk mitigation strategies.
Leading brands like yours must constantly evolve and differentiate. But how can you do so while confidently navigating constantly changing market dynamics?
By relying on our deep supply chain experience and breadth of experience across the supply base and in multiple domains, you can leverage our difference-making foresight to gain a competitive edge. Our ability to accurately aggregate total landed cost helps determine the best location to make your products.
Our extensive and diversified supplier network supports manufacturing at scale. And our foresight and experiences allow you to take advantage of the latest capabilities and trends — helping you make future-focused decisions, faster.
We respond to quickly changing market dynamics thanks to our deep supplier partnerships and sophisticated supply chain management tools and processes.
That is how we make proactive recommendations as we anticipate changes in trade and the supply chain.
We expertly manage our parts inventory to keep production going, no matter the circumstances.
Take advantage of our dedicated sourcing team that works directly with design engineers to optimize design for manufacturing.
Your products must evolve and keep up with the latest technologies or risk getting left behind.
Our continual investment in understanding new technologies — and how they should be implemented across multiple industries — helps alleviate your burden of deciding what changes to adopt and how they should be implemented. We rely on the best suppliers so you can take advantage of high-quality, advanced components as your products continue to innovate.
Your business needs to evolve to stay ahead. But how do you stay in front of the competition?
You can rely on our more than 50 years of supply chain management experience and expertise in more than a dozen industries and technologies to provide the business advantage you need.
Our ability to research, model, build, and execute robust supply chain plans can reduce time-to-market.
Our breadth of services can help create in-region postponement models to increase velocity and reduce inventory as benefits are realized along the value chain.
Embedding sustainability into the supply chain is one way we responsibly design and manufacture products that improve people’s lives.
Our sustainability goals are reflective of strong governance standards, policies, and procedures that transparently drive disciplined practices.
As we strive to reduce environmental impacts throughout our global supply chain, we also hold our supplier network to the highest ethical standards while providing them with ongoing guidance and training to further the reach of our sustainability efforts.
We are the supply chain partner you can trust. We screen 100 percent of new global suppliers on social and environmental criteria to verify safe working conditions and ethical and environmentally responsible operations.
As part of our sustainability strategy, we are committed to 50 percent of our preferred suppliers setting greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets by 2025, and 100 percent by 2030.
To support this goal, we developed an award-winning Supplier GHG Emissions Reduction Program as part of our broader supplier sustainability program. We share knowledge, resources, and best practices to help preferred suppliers measure emissions, set emissions reduction targets, and ultimately deepen our relationship in the spirit of accelerating sustainability.
One of the hallmarks of our sustainability strategy is participation and leadership in global organizations committed to ensuring responsible operations and mitigating climate change.
Our sustainability goals align to four of the UN Development Sustainable Goals (UN SDGs).
As a member of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), we have GHG emission reduction targets in line with what the latest climate science deems necessary to meet the Paris Agreement’s goals. We are a founding member and active participant in the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI), which promotes mitigating social and environmental impacts of extraction and processing of raw materials in supply chains.
Our goal is to accelerate sustainability throughout the product lifecycle. That is why our reverse logistics and circular economy services move beyond traditional individual repair, refurbishment, or recycling solutions.
We help you plan for the holistic business transformations required to maximize value and extend the life of your products.
Our suite of value recovery financial modeling and visibility tools project the positive financial impacts of the solutions you employ.
