Jon Barrett
Editor of Electronics Sourcing UK, North America and Europe
During his publishing career, Jon has continued to develop his mechanical, electronic and software skills ranging from recent qualifications in precision welding to the development of hosted business software.
Emotion yields ground to data
My life story has been riding the economic sine wave that is the electronics design and manufacturing industry. When a crisis hits, newscasters roll out the standard response that businesses demand predictability. In reality, it depends what business you are in. If the world was predictable I imagine the insurance sector would shrink. In the manufacturing arena, companies want the upside of unpredictability when surprising a competitor with a new product, while also seeking out…
Preparing for 2024 forecasts
At the time of writing, I’m already waiting for the executive forecast copy to start arriving ahead of the December issues of Electronics Sourcing UK and North America. At this stage of the process, I like to play a mind game by trying to second guess the authors’ thoughts and then compare my ideas with the final articles. If I was to write my own executive forecast it would start with reshoring, nearshoring and…
Disintegrated circuits
I can still remember when I first encountered the concept of integrated circuits during electronics lessons at school in the 1970s. As a naive child encountering this technology for the first time I imagined the integration process would rattle along at a good pace until all electronic functions were integrated into a single chip. At that point, the world would only need one chip because it would be able to offer every function any electronic…
John Denslinger
Editorial contributor to Electronics Sourcing
John Denslinger is a former executive VP Murata, president SyChip Wireless, and president/CEO ECIA, the industry’s trade association. His career has spannned up to 40 raw years in electronics.
Navigating the trade tide shift in ocean transit
John Denslinger dives deep into the ocean of trade transit, revealing that growth on the Gulf and East Coast is likely to exceed that of the West Coast in the coming decade Eighty per cent of global trade is moved by ocean shipping. That’s an incredible figure made possible by a sprawling network of ports, massive container ships and two vital canals. Ocean routes and transit times have remainedpredictable for years. America’s ports once shared the same consistency,…
America—intelligent packaging replaces smart
Starting with cardboard boxes, John Denslinger walks readers through the history of packaging innovations concluding with intelligent packaging bristling with electronics. It wasn’t long ago goods shipped in simple cardboard boxes with little more than a sender’s name and destination address. As years passed, package design and materials steadily improved, affording better product protection, brand graphics and lower overall costs. As e-commerce exploded, consumers began to expect more. They wanted the ability to track…
Battle for rare earth minerals
To some, ‘battle’ might be overkill describing the outlook for rare earth minerals. Afterall, these minerals are actually abundant and found on every continent. Like most battles though, engagement with opposition occurs on multiple fronts. Such is the case for rare earth: trophy minerals are seldom extracted from a single, concentrated deposit; mineral processing entails a complex and expensive transformation to a useful alloy; and unfortunately, the US finds itself in a weak starting position…