Secure Components
Lifecycle Solutions Ensure Defense Contractors Thrive

In contrast to the commercial global electronics market, where technologies change rapidly, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) programs have significantly longer lifespans and acquisition cycles. This necessitates a reliable partner that combines a deep understanding of the comprehensive engineering and testing required for part approval with a network of vetted vendors and solution partners.

Secure Components, a respected lifecycle solutions partner, supports the DOD’s need for a reliable, agile, and secure supply chain. Secure Components collaborates closely with its customers to develop proactive procurement solutions, enabling programs to stay on schedule and budget. As a Department Logistics Agency (DLA)-approved supplier for electronic components and semiconductors, their expertise includes sourcing the most volatile and high-risk aspects of a program’s bill of materials: EEE components, Semiconductors, and MIL-SPEC hardware.

Bringing its competencies to the cloud, Secure Components launched RAS (Resilient, Agile, Secure), a sophisticated software with algorithms customized to incorporate every bill of materials (BOM) production and sustainment schedules. RAS continually monitors for potential procurement risks that could halt production and sustainment. An analyst assigned to each BOM substantiates and facilitates solutions to procurement risks. RAS reduces risk, labor and costs by verifying true stock and lead times, providing procurement schedules and engineering solutions that avoid production delays.

“We make the DOD’s electronics procurement more agile and proactive by vigilantly monitoring their BOM via algorithms customized to meet each bill of materials production and sustainment schedule. Real-time API data helps identify and resolve risks before they cause production delays,” says Stephan Halper, COO and Director of Business Development.

Once the RAS predictive procurement software identifies the issues in a customer’s procurement schedule, Secure Components’ analysts provide actionable solutions that align with the client’s quality requirements across every stakeholder and supplier.

Unlike the traditional DOD procurement model, which focuses solely on obsolescence and the lifecycle of a component, Secure Components emphasizes the importance of monitoring procurement risk. Active components often create unforeseen production delays due to unexpected shifts in lead times and stocking levels, causing line-down situations and accelerated costs. RAS analysts provide procurement schedules with the most cost-effective timeline to procure high-risk microcircuits and semiconductor devices.

In cases where the core issues cannot be resolved by optimizing the procurement cycle, Secure Components collaborates with their customers’ engineers to provide solutions, including providing bare die with custom packaging for aftermarket production or tech insertion with ARC Technology Solutions, whose proprietary ESP design can reduce significant hardware and multiple components down to one FPGA. Secure Components’ philosophy is, “There is always a way forward when you have the right intention, commitment, and outstanding partners working together to ensure every program can thrive and sustain.”

In a notable instance, Secure Components helped one of DOD’s major prime contractors sustain a key program when their primary source of supply could no longer manufacture an essential component. The client urgently needed an alternative way to continue with the program. Secure Components collaborated with the customers’ engineers, a qualified supplier who had the original die and managed the custom packaging and testing with their partners, collectively protecting the program.

Such successes are a testament to Secure Components’ commitment to quality and service, which extends to its partners and suppliers, who possess AS9100 certifications. Secure was the first company to be AS6081 certified for counterfeit avoidance. Committed to meeting all the Department of Defense quality requirements, the company enables them to resolve emerging supply chain issues effectively and on time.

“Our aim as a partner is to be flexible enough to offer long- or short-term solutions depending on the customers’ needs and always be ready to help them drive their programs, goals and schedules by providing the right solutions at the right time,” says Jessica Beckwith, VP of strategy and new business.

A frontrunner in helping the DOD navigate its electronic components procurement challenges, Secure Components is a go-to supply chain solutions partner, obsolete component supplier and collaborative resource partner.