Previous articles have discussed a segmentation of the electronics market called Long Life Cycle(LLC) Products. LLC products are those whose useful life is longer than five years. In a subsequent article, the current state of the electronics ecosystem, and the connection of the LLC market to the AI/IOT mega-trends were also discussed. Overall, LLC customers…
The global coronavirus has upended many of the metrics used to forecast supply, demand, economic activity and financial stability. Two electronics associations – the IPC and ECIA – report electronics markets are recovering, but forward momentum is decelerating. “The economy improved over the last month, but it is clear that momentum is slowing and future…
The Newark electronics catalog – once known as the “Bible of the industry” — has made significant progress under parent Avnet Inc. and expects additional investment will boost its e-commerce capabilities and restore historically high profit margins. Newark was acquired in 1996 by the UK’s Premier Farnell group. The Newark and Farnell catalogs underwent a…
Disasters have a way of elevating procurement operations to saviors of the day, week or month. But once a crisis has passed, purchasing reverts back to its identity as a corporate cost center. Covid-19 could strengthen purchasing’s position as a corporate risk-management resource. The pandemic has raised the supply chain to a topic of national…
A growing amount of waste — in the form of plastics and electronics — is putting increased pressure on the recycling industry and its supply chains. Despite big initiatives by public and private organizations, recycling rates remain low. This increases the chance that plastics accumulate in the environment. Public information on recycling is also limited.…
Machine learning (ML) is positioned to solve a range of supply chain challenges today, but commercializing ML applications lags behind research. Businesses that stand to gain from ML solutions are helping accelerate that process. Last week, MIT’s Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) research alliance launched, via webinar, MachineLearningApplications@CSAIL to develop applications for the latest…
“LLC defined” highlighted an electronics market segment whose end products have an expected useful life over 5 years and “LLC electronics ecosystem” explored the challenges for the support for these products today. The technical challenges involve issues of reliability and obsolescence, but these are driven by business challenges of the relative size of the LLC…
We’ve all heard about blockchain for years, yet many of us in the high tech supply chain still view the technology as some sort of enigma, or saying we’ve become accustomed to using yet really don’t understand. Kind of like the word enigma itself, which truth be told I had to look up the definition…
There aren’t may start-ups in electronics distribution, and even fewer that specialize in end-of-life (EOL) components. Flip Electronics has just celebrated its fifth year focusing on the “bleeding edge” of technology. Flip manages EOL parts for component suppliers and customers. “I’d say five years is proof of concept,” said Jason Murphy, Flip’s founder and CEO.…
U.S. factory activity in August expanded at its fastest rate since 2018, driven by a surge in demand and shrinking levels of customer inventory. The Institute for Supply Management’s PMI rose 1.8 percent to 56 percent in August, compared with 54.2 percent in July. This is the third month of manufacturing expansion since April’s contraction,…