Astera Labs, a leader in purpose-built data and memory connectivity solutions, needed an end-to-end ERP solution to support their rapid growth and track inventory at lot level. After evaluating several options, they decided to implement Tensoft SemiOps.
Recently, Nathan Willems, the Corporate Controller, and Alice Zhang, the AVP of Business Operations at Astera Labs joined us for a video interview to share their experience with Tensoft SemiOps.
Watch the case study video or read the transcript below:
Video Transcript-
Nathan Willems, Corporate Controller:
Astera Labs is a leader in purpose-built data and memory connectivity solutions to remove bottlenecks in the data center supporting AI and machine learning solutions. In 2020, we decided that we needed to implement an ERP solution to move us off QuickBooks. We were moving fairly rapidly as a startup and approaching a point of production revenue and so prior to that we needed an end-to-end solution and decided to start our search for an ERP solution.
Alice Zhang, AVP of Business Operations:
During the search phase, we looked at quite a lot of different options and found that Tensoft is perfect for the semiconductor startups. I think you will agree that – in a startup phase – it’s very hard to go with these high scaled, big named ERP systems. It’s just so expensive, right? So you have to find a system that does the job and is perfect for the semiconductor industry, but also fits the bill. So, I think that was a really good solution for us to choose.
Nathan Willems, Corporate Controller:
I’ve used ERP systems at past companies, much larger companies, so familiar with NetSuite and SAP solutions and felt that there was a lot of customization that was required usually to implement what we needed in order to track semiconductor at the lot level and inventory as well as both, receipts and shipments and sales. And so Tensoft out of the box was available to us as a solution without having to go through heavy customization.
The implementation of the Tensoft solution for Astera Labs, we’re talking about middle of 2020, so pandemic had just started. A lot of us were sent home out of the office, working remotely and so there were a lot of opportunities for mishaps and delays. Honestly, we were up and running in 90 days, even though we were doing it remotely, it well exceeded my expectations.
Alice Zhang, AVP of Business Operations:
The two things I really like about Tensoft is we are in Semiconductor business. Tensoft solution is really able to track the lot through entire semiconductor flow – from Fab, from Prob, then through Assembly, Test and go into Packaging. So, every single lot is tracked. So then it go to customer, then we know exactly which lot go to which customer. If anybody asks, this customer, what type of product we shipped and which lot, and we are able, we have exact record, we are able to track.
And then the second thing is the integration with our partners, for example, like OSAT partners. So it’s very important for us to have these automatic feed. We are shipping millions of units and there’s no way we can handle this manually ourselves. So the system integration really help out to free up our resources basically.
Nathan Willems, Corporate Controller:
There’s no ever any worries about whether receipts are being posted and the integrity of the data is always checked against subcontractor records and they are always matching. So we feel very confident in the accuracy of the system.
Alice Zhang, AVP of Business Operations:
Also we integrate the shipping system with our OSAT as well and they are able to see all our orders that need to ship and then they can just ship per the order that in their system and they’re able to see, for example, like a shipping address, the shipping carrier, all this information is out there.
Nathan Willems, Corporate Controller:
So one of the benefits of being a Tensoft customer is their connectivity and integrations with other ERPs allow us to be able to consider in the future potentially upgrading our ERP to a new system and to seamlessly have Tensoft continue to work off of the system to track our inventory. So it gives us confidence that any additional improvements or implementations we do in the future will be successful.
To learn more about Tensoft SemiOps, view this factsheet or contact us!