The consumer as a micro-supplier
The interconnections between companies and their external stakeholders become more intens by the day. The world's leading provider of lithography systems for the semiconductor industry, ASML, is a company where several hundred external business partners are very closely integrated in the design, development, integration and servicing of the systems used to make CPU’s, GPU’s, memory modules and other advanced microchips. Up to 90% of the total system costs are supplied externally and business partners several tiers deep in the supply chain have access to relevant technology and product development information from ASML. It allows ASML fast access to new innovations created throughout its value chain, without the need to invest themselves in all these areas. ASML focuses on the high value-added integration role, including product competence and manufacturing cycle times while the business partners design and manufacture specialized subsystems. But not only suppliers become part of t