Supplier Excel Teams (SETs)

This paper describes the team model, design, mission, roadmap and sustaining process of the Silicon Supplier Excel Team (SET) used by National Semiconductor´s Digital Logic high volume fab in South Portland, Maine. Historically, procurement activities have been silo oriented, with each department in the procurement process concentrating only on their portion of the process. Process engineering wrote the specification and did not communicate with purchasing who in turn only looked for the lowest price while Q/A only interacted with process engineering if there was a problem. This technique is no longer acceptable under the new team culture of National. In order to provide the fab with the highest quality, lowest cost of ownership materials. A new system of materials procurement is deemed to be necessary. The SET concept embodies all of the principles of our in-house cross-functional teams but takes it one step further and includes the supplier as a team member