FOR FREE MAGAZINE

Fundamental improvement in market conditions

Tioga Electronic Assembly’s COO, Andy Grimmett

Tioga Electronic Assembly’s COO, Andy Grimmett, has seen a significant improvement in component availability, leading to faster time-to-market for its customers

We have witnessed a significant shift in the electronic component supply chain in recent months, which has seen component availability increase along with the resultant economic benefits of reduced component cost. There remain some exceptions where we are still experiencing inflated costs and long lead times with certain parts and manufacturers, but the general picture is fundamentally improved.

This has been a welcome change to us as a CEM and to our many customers. As a CEM we are fortunate to have an extensive customer base operating across a diverse range of OEM market sectors, which protects us from industry-based growth and decline to a large extent. However, we have observed a slowdown in business within the EV market sector resulting from the Government announcing a five-year delay to ban the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles.

During the past few years, where many components had unprecedented long lead times and highly inflated prices, many of our customers were forced to place orders many months, if not years, ahead of when they required product. At the very least, customers needed to forecast and commit the purchase of difficult components. Happily, we are rarely affected by component availability now, often delivering orders for products within weeks rather than months and we are also seeing a healthy decline in our component stock position.