Anyone familiar with Foxconn/Hon Hai Precision Industry retained a healthy dose of skepticism when Foxconn announced it would build advanced liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) in Wisconsin. To put it charitably, Foxconn is not renowned for honoring its contracts. More than 20 years ago, when I was working for Electronic Business magazine, one of our editors spent…
CES 2019 was a white-knuckle roller-coaster of a ride, with some game-changing technology already here and more on the horizon. Here are my top 10 takeaways from the press days, the keynotes, and the time I spent with the exhibitors and innovators on the show floor. Of course, it’s impossible to see everything. The…
The electronics industry has developed some of the most ground-breaking technologies in human history. Yet, the best minds in high-tech have been unable to overcome one of the industry’s most insidious challenges: counterfeit electronics. To some extent, technology advancements have only added to the problem: electronic components can now be cloned so well that they…
Procurement technology to date has been populated by big-budget systems and suites that cause more problems than they fix. It’s an unpleasant workflow for users of all backgrounds, and with inaccessible and rigid user interfaces, it still does not give users a developed and realized view into their spend culture. These systems lack specifically in…
Sixty percent of companies make offshore-sourcing decisions based on rudimentary metrics, such as wage rate, ex-works price or landed cost, often resulting in a 15 to 30 percent understatement of actual offshoring costs. Inclusion of all relevant factors—overhead, balance sheet, risks, corporate strategy and other external and internal business considerations—provides a better determination of the…
Only 10 chip makers account for 60 percent of the global semiconductor market in 2018, IC Insights reports, significantly up from a 45 percent share in 2008. The top five semiconductor suppliers accounted for 47 of the world’s semiconductor sales in 2018, an increase of 14 percentage points from 10 years earlier. In total, the…
U.S. manufacturing continued to grow in December, but much more slowly than in previous months, according to the Institute for Supply Management. Headwinds included a strong U.S. dollar; trade disputes; dysfunction in Washington, DC, and higher interest rates. Tailwinds included the strength in reshored manufacturing jobs for the last several years. For example, manufacturing jobs via…
The Institute for Supply Management made headlines last week as it announced its leading index for U.S. factory activity, the PMI, dropped in December by more than 5 points. The decline was sharp enough to move the Dow Jones Industrial Average for several days. Depending on your source material, this was the worst drop since…
As we head into the new year, EPSNews looks back at the top 10 stories of 2018. For the second year in a row, the most popular topic were the shortages in the electronic components industry. It’s not surprising that four out of the top five articles focused on shortages thanks to a wide range…
Mouser Electronics Inc. — on the tail of an announced warehouse expansion — reported that by the end of 2018 it expects to grow by almost 50 percent in Europe, from $1.34 billion to an estimated $1.87 billion, with a customer increase in excess of 18 percent. Mouser executives attribute the growth to targeted customer promotions supported by…