As the electronics industry shakes off recessionary woes, moves beyond the damage done by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and digests monthly manufacturing well-being reports, supply chain professionals seem ready to find the silver lining. Earlier this week, VentureOutsource released its latest Electronics Supply Chain Business Outlook Survey. Generally, among the 412 supply chain executives…
In the tech world, coming late to the party can have near-fatal consequences for even the biggest names in the industry. Consumers and Wall Street no longer have time and patience for companies that stop innovating, lag too far behind market leaders, or have little ability to quickly correct course. The consequences of multiple missteps…
It's that time of the month when manufacturers, supply chain experts, and economists ready themselves for the news: Did the sector grow, shrink, or hold steady? By all signs, May was a contraction month as manufacturing slowed globally. A slowdown in Asian growth, high input prices, lower demand in the US, inventory adjustments, and supply…
We have smartphones, smart cards, smart cars, and pretty smart houses, judging by the increasing number of data-sharing devices linked up between the kitchen and the living room. It makes sense that our cities should be equally smart as well. For some time now, cities globally have been investing in all sorts of infrastructure to…
Last weekend, a friend mentioned that his brother, a purchaser at a pet food company, was likely going to back to school to get an advanced degree in economics. And his company was going to foot the bill. This got me thinking about how, to create business value, companies need to create valuable employees. In…
Three months after hearing everyone at the Mobile World Congress rave about every possible flavor of tablet likely to blanket the global market, I've got to say the alleged multi-brand omnipresence seems to be still alleged, at least where I am. The other day, I walked around Barcelona with fellow EBN blogger Marc Herman to…
Is it just me or does it seem as if nearly every country is shining the lights on at least one of its cities and promoting it as the next “Silicon Valley?” During the last couple of weeks, I’ve come across news snippets implying that being dubbed some sort of copycat Silicon Valley, Mobile World…
Europe may be overreaching with its environmental compliance laws. Don’t get me wrong. I believe state, federal, and international environmental regulations are good. Without them, do you really think recycling programs would have created themselves or organizations would have willingly stopped producing devices containing harmful substances? But then a story in The Economist reminded me…
Back in the day — you know, a couple years ago — people talked up the benefits of end-to-end shop-floor visibility and how smoothly the supply chain could work if engineering, manufacturing, and throughput data were instantly and always available to connected, trusted partners. However, I don't remember much being said about the inherent security…
In the last few days, Dutch chip company {complink 9538|NXP Semiconductors N.V.} has been catching some curious headlines and social media hash tags. There has been Internet scuttlebutt that the Eindhoven, Netherlands-based automotive and multi-market semiconductor company is in takeover talks. Press releases have announced the set up of an automotive technical center in China,…