How a Buyer Used Supplier Mentoring to Cut Lead Times 40 Percent

The Buyer's Side with Fexingo: Procurement, Sourcing, and B2B Purchasing Decisions · Jul 4, 2026 · 8m · transcript

Episode 92 of The Buyer's Side shows how a mid-size electronics contract manufacturer used supplier mentoring to cut lead times by 40 percent in 14 months, without switching vendors. Lucas and Luna walk through the real case: a $120 million buyer in Guadalajara who sent two procurement engineers to live at a struggling connector supplier's plant for six weeks. They helped the supplier implement kanban, 5S, and basic forecasting. The result: from 18-week lead times to 10.5 weeks, defect rate down 28 percent, and a 6 percent price reduction. The hosts discuss why supplier mentoring is…