Streamlining the purchasing experience

Transformation is long overdue in semiconductor procurement. While large companies like automakers may have advanced purchasing capabilities, companies in other industries struggle to make their existing procurement systems more sophisticated, leading to frustration, delays and potential order errors. For many organizations, the handoff from engineering requirements to procurement is manual.

Some companies still use email when purchasing from suppliers. Others must re-key every order, invoice or request for the material requirements planning documents they submit to a supplier, which introduces the potential for error and wastes valuable time.

These common practices have made semiconductor procurement more complex, costly and less reliable than it should be.

Over the last decade, TI has invested in self-service capabilities on TI.com to make it more convenient to purchase our products, automating the order management experience to make it easier to find the right qualified products for designs. We want engineers to have seamless access to our large and diverse product portfolios.

As a semiconductor manufacturer, it is important to us that you have the ability to make fast and efficient procurement decisions. Unprecedented insights into availability, detailed product information such as material attribute and quality documentation, and comprehensive order management make it possible to gain faster access to inventory and thus get to market faster. The enhancements we’ve made give you better control over your buying process, resulting in an improved supply chain.

Self-service purchasing features available from TI:

• myTI dashboard – The myTI dashboard is a portal that simplifies the order management experience by giving purchasing managers access to administrative order information, including current and past orders, invoices and other purchasing documents, shipment tracking, line-of-credit insights, and everything in between. There are task widgets to help you navigate the onboarding and purchasing journey that take the guesswork out of finding information or what the next steps are.

  The material attribute data tool in the dashboard gives purchasers and engineers direct visibility into material attribution data such as country of origin, lead times, TI.com inventory and more.

• myTI company account – Our new company account feature gives a company’s procurement team and any employee with an email address on its web domain the ability to collaborate through a shared account. A myTI company account gives teams greater flexibility across their organization to do business with TI faster and easier than before. Company accounts make it possible to replicate company hierarchical structures or organize by product line, end customer or region.

  An account administrator can quickly add users, manage permissions and account control, and open new company accounts. Administrators can also delegate purchasing and create reusable checkout profiles, as well as keep track of all purchasing information in a consolidated order history and invoicing dashboard. A myTI company account is the only way to access TI’s suite of APIs and organize a company’s users under one account.

• Checkout profiles – Purchasing managers can create customizable profiles for a fast, hassle-free checkout experience. During the checkout process, the profiles automatically populate all pre-saved shipping and payment information, including tax exemption certificates, end-use certificates, freight options, addresses and customs-clearance information.
• TI APIs – Our extensive suites of APIs help you automate your entire sourcing and ordering experience, from initial part selection through inventory monitoring, pricing, purchase and product delivery. Business-critical information is populated directly into your procurement system, giving you direct, convenient access to product and order information. Our suites of APIs comprise comprehensive TI store APIs, which include inventory, order and shipping APIs; product information APIs; and a range of backlog APIs for select users.
• API integration – We have simplified the process of integrating TI APIs by providing case study examples, documentation and a step-by-step connection guide available on TI’s API developer portal.
• Backlog status and document reprints – Real-time inventory backlog information is available with a myTI company account, including important ordering-related documents such as tracking details and commercial and financial invoices. You can use backlog APIs to manage your product backlog orders and retrieve all of your ordering and backlog information directly from your own procurement system.