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Getting turnkey PCBA to source parts from lowest priced official vendor

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Psi:
What's the best way to ensure the turnkey PCB assembler selects the lowest price genuine reseller for all your parts.

What I mean is.
The PCBA house will have a list of common vendors they purchase from and they can probably locate lower cost parts from genuine sources a lot better than I can. 
I guess what I'm asking is, how do you make them pass the savings along to you?
What I suspect normally happens is they quote/charge the digikey price for the parts then sourcing from some official/genuine vendor in china who can get them for 10-50% less. etc..

Do you just have to put the legwork in yourself to find the lowest priced vendor and then say on BOM that this is the only legit source to purchase the part from? I doubt I can even read the official china vendor sites because they will be in Chinese.

jpanhalt:
A vendor has many factors to consider that aren't evident in the retail price lists of distributors.  Just some examples:
1) Supply reliability
2) Volume-based discount(s) (total annual volume, not single item)
3) Billing and credit arrangements with parts supplier
4) Shipping costs (single item cost/shipping cost << large purchase/shipping cost)

What you are wondering about is having control over the assembler's shop.  Sort of like taking your car to a dealer and expecting to tell the shop where to gets its pars.  In my business, that would never happen, as I was ultimately responsible for the outcome regardless of where I got our supplies.  I suspect a PCB assembler would feel the same.  Of course, there can be exceptions in the auto repair business (e.g., custom modifications), and that may also happen in PCB assembly.

wraper:
I guess you could tell them to get parts from LCSC of buy at LCSC or other Chinese vendor and ship to the factory yourself. Otherwise I don't think you can exert any leverage on them.

Kean:
Well I believe some of the high-end CMs will state their margin on components up front, and are happy to show you their supplier invoices for verification.  Or that has been the case in the past, and possibly not uncommon in the current market where prices have skyrocketed.  You will still need to do some legwork to get a good feel for your target BOM cost, but it will be pretty volatile right now.

Assuming we are talking decent order quantities, the CM should also be able to provide a supplier Declaration of Conformity, along with date codes or batch numbers for tracing purposes - especially for parts where you have nominated suppliers or "no generics".  Now whether what they show you is true or something they made up is another matter, but if concerned you should be able to verify.

Most of the time I run small assembly jobs in-house, or use an assembly house that accepts or prefers a BOM kitted by me.  That isn't generally practical with an overseas CM, so you need to build a relationship maybe with a local company that has their own overseas factory.  Having a local company responsible can be important if there is ever a legal dispute.

Here is something I found earlier which may give some insight into how the big manufacturing contracts are written (if you like reading legalease)
https://www.lawinsider.com/contracts/kTKQAyt1zjY

thm_w:

--- Quote from: Psi on September 23, 2021, 06:31:31 am ---What I suspect normally happens is they quote/charge the digikey price for the parts then sourcing from some official/genuine vendor in china who can get them for 10-50% less. etc..

--- End quote ---

Do they though? Or are you just assuming that.

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