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 predictability in their supply chains. Four-years ago there was no supply chain. Three-years ago scarcity drove prices sky high. Two-years ago everyone was searching for…

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 friend shoring. At present, I’m awash with news about investments in new manufacturing and distribution facilities in the UK, Europe and North America. Likewise, I’m…

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 product would ever need. I could not have got that more wrong if I tried. Every ‘integration’ the semiconductor sector achieves is followed by a…

On page 30 of this issue, John Denslinger discusses the benefits and limitations of reshoring, nearshoring and friendshoring. It’s a topic which has been bubbling under the surface for at least 30-years since the offshoring phenomenon first started gaining pace. So, why has it resurfaced now? The answer is simple, nothing stays the same for ever.   All the variables that made offshoring the only solution three decades ago have been, still are and will always be in a state of constant flux. At any point in time the sum of these variables either suggests offshoring is the right or…

Welcome to the bumper September issue of Electronics Sourcing North America, weighing in at 100-pages. One key reason the issue has reached this page-count milestone is it’s home to two significant reports: the ECIA’s Top 50 Global Authorized Distributors Report 2023; and ESNA’s Top 20 Global Independent Distributors Report 2023.   Opening the ECIA Report, chief analyst, Dale Ford, explains how this year’s findings build on the foundation of previous years’ data, with publication of this update a continuation of a plan to develop additional research on the electronic component distribution markets.   Dale explained the methodology used to compile…

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 product would ever need.   I could not have got that more wrong if I tried. Every ‘integration’ the semiconductor sector achieves is followed by…