I recently had a conversation with Wade McDaniel, vice president of supply chain solutions for Avnet Velocity. The discussion was centered on the many layers of risk management, and a few things stood out from a presentation McDaniel provided. It was a map of earthquake-prone areas of the world. The image stands out in my…
Successful supply chains measure key performance indicators (KPIs) to determine how well their organizations are performing to drive operational excellence, and have “open and honest” relationships with their suppliers and customers, according to a new report released by ASQ. “Supply chain KPIs must be in line with the goals of your customers and that businesses need…
A 40-year-old Chinese citizen pleaded guilty in a New Haven, Conn., federal court last week to conspiring to sell counterfeit ICs to a buyer in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Daofu Zhang of Shenzen, China, and two co-conspirators each operated businesses in China that bought and sold electronic components.…
More organizations are investing in business-to-business electronic integration (B2Bi) and are reaping the benefits of lower costs and higher efficiency, according to a new study released by the University of Tennessee’s Global Supply Chain Institute, in collaboration with B2B integration provider DiCentral. The study, Transform Your Supply Chain with Collaboration, also finds that 96 percent…
Ten years ago, Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook and Twitter started its 140 character services. Both platforms changed the world as we knew it on how we communicated, and impacted everything from the news to showing what we were doing and eating. The ball game changed, it started social media. The individual was heard vs. corporate…
E-commerce has effectively demolished the geographic boundaries that used to limit electronics procurement through the distribution channel. Component suppliers authorized distributors to sell their brands in geographic markets to avoid over-distribution and linecard conflicts. The first time a distributor offered all of its brands internationally online tested those boundaries. The supply chain found that expanding…
U.S. manufacturing has been on a bumpy ride for the last five months: The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) has reported industry contraction since October 2015. The pace of contraction slowed a bit in February and is inching closer to a level of 50.0, the demarcation line between growth and contraction on the ISM index.…
Financial executives of small and mid-sized U.S. manufacturing businesses are optimistic about their growth prospects for 2016, according to research from the buying consortium PrimeAdvantage. At the same time, CFO confidence in the U.S. economy has fallen from last year with slightly more than half of executives – 54 percent — expressing optimism. This is…
Yes, I lied about social media. It’s really not THAT bad. Being Catholic I will avoid telling this sin to my priest at confession. These are the three reasons you must get engaged in social media: If you don’t tell your own story…who will? I will always remember when I was at a Business Marketing…
Military and aerospace devices used to be the gold standard for quality and performance back in the days when the U.S. defense industry was one of the world’s biggest consumers of electronics components. Now, some industry experts believe, quality and performance advancements are being rivalled by the automotive industry. “It’s interesting — the trends we…