Princeps’ operations director, Ian Walker, explains how the firm can help mitigate the risks associated with components sourced on the open market.
Electronic components are big business, resulting in increased prevalence—and sophistication—of counterfeit parts in the supply chain. These risks shouldn’t be underestimated, especially for aerospace, defence and other hi-rel applications.
This remains a significant and growing problem for procurement managers, especially with ongoing component shortages.
Princeps takes this threat seriously, with solid systems and processes in place to support its quality management approach. As one of a handful of UK-based distributors with AS6081 accreditation, Princeps has invested in its in-house testing and verification laboratory, recently adding over £150,000 worth of new equipment. This supports the expertise of its inspection and quality assurance team with technology, from high power optical microscopes to an XRF spectrometer and a decapsulation system.
Princeps is proud to have reached a significant milestone: successfully shipping over 50 million electronic components without a single suspect counterfeit device slipping through its stringent quality control measures.
Princeps belongs to a global elite of EEE component distributors that hold both AS9120 and AS6081 accreditations for industry- leading quality assurance. Both standards require a multi-stage certification process, followed by periodic surveillance audits to ensure compliance is maintained throughout the three year certification cycle.
Together, these certifications provide a robust best practice framework of risk management for specialist independent distributors operating in the aerospace, defence and security sectors. AS9120, the aviation industry’s quality management standard for distributors, ensures compliance with stringent regulations and satisfies customer flow downs (including AS5553), while AS6081 focuses specifically on counterfeit avoidance. By adhering to these standards, distributors can demonstrate effective quality control measures, helping customers assure product safety, efficiency and reliability by guaranteeing that components sourced from them are genuine, thereby guarding against the infiltration of fraudulent, counterfeit or substandard parts into the supply chain.
Princeps’ operations director, Ian Walker, said: “Even with our stringent procedures and in-depth knowledge of the global components marketplace, we are uncovering an average of one or two fraudulent or counterfeit items every month. This demonstrates the level of vigilance necessary, especially when trying to source obsolete parts. When sourcing through Princeps, customers are assured of component authenticity through a range of risk mitigation solutions, including fully bespoke test and inspection plans following AS6081, AS6171 or any of the other methodologies available.”
To source and deliver electronic components in a safe, trusted and secure manner—mitigating risk and verifying authenticity— Princeps employs a range of techniques to identify suspect and counterfeit electronic components in the supply chain. This includes review of dimensions and markings, comparison to an extensive library of known-good devices, x-ray inspection and decapsulation. While individual tests often show up anomalous results, this combination of approaches helps reliably produce the ‘smoking gun’ evidence needed—especially given that some suspect devices are, in fact, ‘good’ clones, parts that may even work for a while and under certain conditions.