Archive for September, 2009
8 Things You Need To Know Before Doing Any Business With Any Distributor
Posted by: | CommentsIn the perfect world, you would always be able to buy direct from manufacturers. But in the real world, there are times you need to do business with distributors, rep-firms, and independents. Before you put your trust – and your reputation – into the hands of any distributor, take the time to ask yourself these eight questions basic questions.
1. Is the company ISO 9001:2000 and AS9120 certified. A lot of brokers will boast that they are ISO certified but, in today’s market, basic ISO is not stringent enough to screen for counterfeit parts. And, before buying anything from the independent market, it’s important to make sure that your supplier’s quality protocol is Military/Aerospace grade, so you know you’re getting authentic, perfect material every time, without exception.
2. Does the supplier have a solid facility with a ‘bricks and mortar’ warehouse, an entire department devoted to shipping and receiving, and the staff to screen for quality assurance. Many “brokers” are just one-man shows who work out of their garage and ship components from the nearest FedEx at Kinko’s shop. The risks of doing business with an outfit like that are obvious. A quick check of the address on Google Earth will show you whether the location is an actual warehouse or just a suburban home.
3. Do they field an experienced team? Again, that means more than one person wearing all the hats. But it also means that you’re working with experienced veterans who know what they have, where to get what you need, and how to get it fast. Any competent distributor should have multiple purchasing agents screening through the OEM and CM excess inventories of the world. That way, when faced with a big shortage, you’ll know your supplier has many minds leveraging their collective knowledge and experience to meet your needs.
4. Does the broker have a bulletproof quality screening process? You can screen the broker, but it’s the broker’s job to screen their suppliers and all the components they get on your behalf. They need to make sure their supply stream is completely traceable and without compromise from unqualified sources, so yours will be too. Choose a distributor that is ahead of the curve in Quality Control. The counterfeit market is very savvy these days, and many ISO certified distys do not have the testing in place to discern what is authentic and what is not.
5. How many accounts does your sales representative handle? You don’t want to deal with someone who is spread so thin that they can’t give you the attention you deserve. You want someone who is always available and able to help in any situation. In fact a good sales rep at your distributor of choice– should be almost like having a virtual assistant. You want someone with experience, strong work ethic and that cares about keeping you on their client list for many years.
6. What kind of engineering support does the company offer? Procurement effort can be confusing with upscreening, exact crosses, drop in replacements, programming, erasing, and testing. A distributor with a good engineering team knows what will fit your needs and what will cause component system failure and weed them out so you won’t waste your time and your company’s resources sorting through options that are not viable.
7. Get references. Any company that meets all of the above criteria and will be a true extension of your organization should be able to provide multiple references from Fortune 500 companies proving their track record.
8. Make sure your distributor has a web based forum where you can submit RFQ’s and get a confirmed quote same day, access unlimited data sheets, and track your shipments. Having to call into a phone system every time you need to expedite a request can be tedious and time consuming. Make sure your distributor can handle all of your requests electronically in addition to giving you the hands on service that you expect. Click here to submit your RFQ.
Big Changes coming to EMS Industry
Posted by: | CommentsAs the market rebounds from this historic economic downturn, expect to see some major changes in the EMS industry as companies and their shareholders try to recoup serious losses and position themselves for the future.
Look for smaller companies that focus on narrow niche specialties like medical, industrial or aerospace. By specializing, they can concentrate all their time and resources more efficiently, keeping margins down and profits up. Larger EMS providers, which dominated the market in the past, will be left to fight over the less specialized consumer, computer and communications business. Those areas make up a large core of the market, but also have lower margins.
Some larger OEMs may turn to insourcing more of their manufacturing, taking a page out of playbooks that have been very successful for both Nokia and Intel. Keeping more manufacturing in-house puts the OEM in control and reduces the costs and headaches that can come from dealing with an EMS provider.
Finally, expect the explosive growth of Original Design Manufacturers to slow as OEMs respond to concerns over design innovation and product differentiation – the driving factor in many industries, especially consumer electronics. Outsourcing the design of specific components helped cut costs. Outsourcing the design of entire products has made some OEM’s fear they are losing their competitive edge. Now more of them are talking about recapturing control of conceptualization and master design from their ODMs.
Experts predict the next five to ten years will bring big changes to the EMS industry – specialization, insourcing, and a return to in-house product design. Will you be ready?
Smartphones Getting Pico-Projectors
Posted by: | CommentsTiny pico-projectors set for huge growth
Smartphones are getting smarter with new embedded projectors capable of showing up to 50-inch bright, diagonal images on any wall or surface. The first one – the Show Phone by Samsung – was unveiled earlier at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and is currently available only in Korea. But the tiny pico-projectors are expected to take off quickly in the international corporate market allowing business travelers to leave bulky laptops and full-size projection systems behind and make presentations directly from their mobile phone or PDA. And you can be sure consumers won’t be far behind, attracted by the ability to share their personal slide shows or YouTube favorites and even movies anywhere there’s a flat surface and a cell phone.
In fact, the sale and shipment of embedded pico projectors is expected to leap from less than 50,000 units this year to more than 3 million units in 2013, says market research firm iSupply. That’s a staggering 60-fold increase in just four years.
There are still some challenges that manufacturers need to work out before embedded pico-projectors can realize their full potential – like power consumption and size. But their ability to overcome screen-size limitations and project a large image from a small device makes embedded pico projectors a perfect fit for the smaller-is-better smartphone market. Expect projector-capable smartphones to start popping up everywhere soon, and get ready for the market to take off.
American Wind Energy Powering Up
Posted by: | CommentsMove over Henry Ford. Atlantic Wind & Solar is planning to create an automotive-style assembly line for wind turbines. It’s a move that could dramatically boost the wind energy industry in the United States. And it’s one more sign that companies with ties to the American wind industry – especially component manufacturers – should be gearing up for a big boost in demand.
According to the U.S. Energy Department, our country’s share of the wind turbine market has already grown from less than 30% in 2005 to about 50% in 2008, adding roughly 8,400 jobs in 2008 alone. But more is coming. Twenty-eight states have passed laws mandating that utilities get a percentage of their power from renewable sources like wind. Nordex USA – a U.S. subsidiary of a German wind turbine manufacturer – has broken ground on a new plant in Arkansas that will produce 300 turbines a year by 2012. And now Atlantic Wind and Solar is hoping to create an automated fabrication line that would pump out a completed 1.5 Mw wind turbine every hour. That’s 2,080 windmills each year.
Where will Nordex, Atlantic and companies like them get their components? Right here in the U.S.A.
How do I know? Because experts agree that a local supply chain is more important in wind turbine manufacturing and assembly than in many other industries. Over 8,000 components go into a completed wind turbine. Unlike, say, the electronics industry, those parts are not tiny, easy-to-ship microchips. Many are big and heavy, which means transporting them internationally costs big bucks. That makes now the time for component suppliers to lay the groundwork for growth in this expanding market, building up an infrastructure that will get all those windmills turning.
Exploding iStuff
Posted by: | CommentsiExplosives?
Have you heard that European authorities are investigating “The Case of the Exploding iPhones?” Apparently a number of iPhones and iPods have exploded or caught fire over the past month in Britain, France, Holland and Sweden.
In June, an iPod was blamed for a car fire in Sweden that nearly incinerated a dog. In July, a man in Holland said he left his iPhone in the car and returned 15 minutes later to find it had caught fire, causing severe damage to the passenger seat. In early August, the father of an 11-year-old girl in Liverpool reported that he was holding his daughters iPod Touch when he felt it get really hot, heard a hissing noise and saw vapor. He said he threw it out the back door and “within 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10 feet in the air.” The father claims that he contacted Apple and the Cupertino-based company offered him a full refund – on the condition that the family sign an agreement not tell anyone about the iPod that went boom. A few weeks later, a French teenager’s eye was injured by flying glass when the screen of the iPhone 3G he was holding suddenly exploded. The phone, which belonged to his girlfriend, was only two months old. Then, just last Tuesday (August 25) a security guard in southeastern France told authorities that the iPhone he bought three months ago for 600 Euros ($850) exploded in his face while he was typing a text message.
Apple reportedly called the exploding screens “isolated incidents.” But France’s consumer watchdog agency opened an investigation after the teenage boy was injured. Now, the EU is also asking questions about the 200 million iPods and 26 million iPhones that have been sold across Europe.
Hmmmmm . . . I wonder where Apple gets their components?
Emerging Component Standards for Wind Energy Industry
Posted by: | CommentsWind energy is hot right now, and getting hotter. And, as the wind energy industry heats up, so is the discussion about standards for wind turbine components. Who will set standards for all the anchor bolts, lock nuts, rigging, blades, concrete, etc., and what will they be? Fastener manufacturers, for example, are all abuzz over whether the millions of fasteners needed for proposed wind farms across the country will use the American inch standard or the metric standard favored by Europeans in the industry. Will the fasteners be stainless steel or hot dipped galvanized metal? And who will decide? Will each of the nearly 100 different companies manufacturing the turbines set their own standards or will there be an International Building Code?
Questions like these were flying around the floor at the Windpower 2009 Conference in Chicago last May. And on November 3-5, the American Wind Energy Association is hosting a conference in Detroit where industry leaders, project developers, wind manufacturers and component suppliers will all gather for – among other attractions – a supply chain workshop. Topics up for discussion include things like major component sourcing, value chain services and re-tooling for the wind industry. Expected to attend are manufacturers and suppliers of a wide range of mechanical and electrical components, including generators, hydraulics, sensors, hardware, drives, power distribution, composites, cabling, big steel, castings, forgings, bearings and gearboxes. They’re all going to want to talk standards.
I, for one, am fascinated by these debates, which are going to shape the growth of the wind industry over the next decade and beyond. I’ll be keeping an eye on new standards as they appear, and hope you will comment below about any developments you’ve heard about in the Wind Energy Industry.
