As the spread of the coronavirus outbreak continues on a meteoric rise, and its toll on human health mounts, the economic effects of the crisis are lining up. Businesses are tasked with several issues to address – guaranteeing the safety of their workers, yet ascertaining operational viability which is now coming under strain given the…
For the past six months, the Electronic Components Industry Association (ECIA) has been in a state of flux. For the procurement community, that became evident though changes to ECIAauthorized, the association’s inventory-aggregation site. In October, some of ECIA’s biggest members – global distributors Arrow Electronics Inc., Avnet Inc. and Electrocomponents plc—left the trade association to…
Expectations for an upturn in electronics component demand have been pushed out to the second half of 2020, and the road to recovery passes directly through global trade policy, leading analysts say. The outlook for Q4 is grim as component demand deteriorates further, Morgan Stanley said in its Q3 distribution survey. “The narrative of a…
In some industries, most notably healthcare and aerospace, the need for secure, climate-controlled, long-term inventory storage facilities needs no explanation. A typical Boeing 747, for example, will endure approximately 35,000 depressurization cycles — roughly 30 years’ worth of flights — before decommission, while an MRI machine can be continually upgraded and repaired to last as…
The nation’s leading factory index in August contracted for the first time in three years as new orders, production and employment all fell below 50 — the threshold between growth and contraction. The Institute for Supply Management’s PMI dropped to 49.1 percent last month, its lowest reading since 2016. Business confidence has also declined as…
Three of the industry’s biggest distributors – Arrow Electronics Inc., Avnet Inc. and Electrocomponents plc – have withdrawn from the Electronic Components Industry Association (ECIA), marking an historic, structural change in the 9-year-old trade organization. A new group, the Global Electronics Distributor Association (GEDA), will be formed within the next 90 days, according to an…
U.S. factory activity declined for the fourth straight month in July as weakening demand and ongoing trade anxiety weighed on manufacturers. The nation’s leading factory index, the PMI, fell to its lowest point since 2016, dropping by 0.5 percent to a level of 51.2. “This is the fourth straight month of PMI decline without any…
DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, reports that following the Toshiba outage in mid-June, the Japanese government announced that it will be controlling South Korea-bound exports of three key materials used in the manufacturing of semiconductors, smartphones and panels, causing module manufacturers in the memory industry downstream to give higher quotes. However, since DRAM and NAND Flash…
Growth in U.S. manufacturing activity in May slowed to its weakest pace in more than two years as purchasing managers raised concerns about a trade war between the U.S. and China, according to the Institute for Supply Management. The ISM’s monthly factory index, the PMI, registered 52.1 percent in May, a 0.7 percent decrease from…
Editor’s note: This is the second article in a two-part series examining how a supply chain planning system model can improve customer service and drive total value creation. Supply chain complexity has increased exponentially over the past several decades because of globalization, consumer demand for increased product customization and the development of multi-functional business processes…