Advanced materials innovator Indium Corporation is pleased to announce that the company has joined the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA).

Through its involvement with the organization, Indium Corporation strengthens its commitment to the growth and development of the electronics manufacturing industry in India. Membership also positions the company to support the region's growing need for consumer and infrastructure electronics, such as EV manufacturing, mobile, 5G, and semiconductors, specifically with its facility located in Chennai, India.

“We are excited to work alongside IESA and the industry ecosystem to drive innovation and create value for our customers,” said Senior Country Sales Manager Damian Santhanasamy. “As a proud supporter of the Make in India campaign, we are committed to serving the Indian electronics market.”

IESA is the leading organization representing the Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) and Intelligent Electronics industry in India. IESA acts as a trusted partner to the Central and State Governments, helping to craft policies and incentives to attract investment into the ESDM industry in India. Also, by bridging the gap between academia and industry, it aims to bring innovations to market in an expedited manner, thereby positively impacting the lives of 1.3 billion Indian citizens.

About Indium Corporation

Indium Corporation® is a premier materials refiner, smelter, manufacturer, and supplier to the global electronics, semiconductor, thin-film, and thermal management markets. Products include solders and fluxes; brazes; thermal interface materials; sputtering targets; indium, gallium, germanium, and tin metals and inorganic compounds; and NanoFoil®. Founded in 1934, the company has global technical support and factories located in China, Germany, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.

For more information about Indium Corporation, visit www.indium.com or email jhuang@indium.com. You can also follow our experts, From One Engineer To Another® (#FOETA), at www.linkedin.com/company/indium-corporation/ or @IndiumCorp.

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Coming May 9-12, 2023 to the Boston suburbs!

To support its growing customer base leading CEM, Custom Interconnect Ltd. (CIL), required innovative equipment that could meet the exacting specifications required to produce complex and critical applications. Through Altus, CIL has the best-in-class equipment, including vapour phase soldering systems and component counter technology to manufacture highly complex PCBAs.

CIL was looking to specialise in assembling power PCBA's soldered in a vacuum for near void-free assemblies, a critical requirement for GaN and SiC packages and power-related assemblies. This required innovative equipment to ensure solder joints had less than 3% void rate. Altus recommended ASSCON vapour phase soldering systems were installed because of their advanced technology and functionality, which sets them above many other providers.

Jiri Kucera, Altus Operations Director, said: “Today’s complex electronic assemblies require precision manufacturing. Voids in solder joints can reduce their reliability, so it is critical to use innovative equipment to prevent them. VP6000 from ASSCON is the ideal solution for CIL. The system combines the benefits of vapour phase technology with a vacuum chamber to reliably produce solder joints and prevent voids and is engineered for the soldering of small and middle-sized board series.

“Its capability ensures CIL meets the exacting requirements to manufacture advanced PCBAs from both NPI and production runs.”

Further investment to advance CIL’s SMT production processes included the Scienscope AXC-800 III X-ray component counter for booking all components in and out of their stores. Altus recommended this revolutionary system because it utilises state-of-the-art X-Ray technology to capture images of components inside the reels and uses an intelligent AI algorithm to count the quantities with an accuracy of 99.9% in less than two seconds per reel.

This intuitive system makes inventory management and component counting faster and more accurate and ensures automatic traceability, an essential requirement for CIL’s advanced electronic assemblies and its customer’s high standards.

CIL Managing Director John Boston said: “The equipment from Altus gives us the capability and capacity to enable both our existing customer base and to realise growth potential. It also positions CIL as a central enabler in the ‘Driving the Electric Revolution’ and ensures we continue to be a leader in electronic manufacturing. With the global component shortage still on-going, stock accuracy has never been more important than it is right now.”

TORRANCE, CA – For decades, the general wisdom in approaching manufacturing has been to rely on a “just in time” strategy to ensure component parts are available the moment they are needed rather than tying up capital to purchase and store inventory. However, with the recent supply chain disruptions that have been causing delays across industries, there is an argument to be made for holding “just in case” (JIC) inventory as well. This is especially important for “golden screws,” the one or two critical components that are needed to finish production and start generating revenue.

While the “just in time”(JIT) philosophy has been effective for over 30 years now, the recent disruptions that have been happening in the supply chain are unpredictable. In the past six years, these disruptions have been more severe and unanticipated, upsetting a relative stability that had existed for some time. Suddenly, parts are completely unavailable, a problem that has been increasingly troublesome over the last 18 months.

“When there is supply chain harmony, when everybody is delivering on time and there is plenty of inventory in distribution, “just in time” works really well, but that is not the current reality and as COVID taught us, you can never anticipate the next event,” says Mike Thomas, vice president and global general manager at Classic Components, a premier independent distributor based in Torrance, CA. “This makes the “just in case” inventory philosophy a crucial piece of the profitability puzzle moving forward.”

JIC is not a new concept, but it is a “now” concept given the instability in the past six years. It is an inventory management strategy where companies keep inventory on hand to anticipate and prepare for unpredictability of demand or the times. The strategy is typically employed in less industrialized countries where disruptions in the supply chain are more common and maintaining more inventory in case of emergency is critical to avoid production delays and other inefficiencies.

“Just in case” means having specific critical items in stock all the time so that when a situation arises like COVID, civil unrest, countries in conflict, or whatever else you can think of that disrupts the supply chain, we still have enough critical electronic components on hand to continue to manufacture our products. Even if it is not as profitable, you remain operational,” says Thomas.

Thomas believes in balancing “just in time” inventory, which helps businesses keep their inventory low and their capital high, with JIC, particularly of items that may be essential to the continued profitability of their business. A term that is gaining traction to describe such parts is the “golden screw,” an item that at times is difficult to procure but is essential to doing business.

“There are a lot of “golden screws” now that companies just couldn’t get their hands on and there were many products that couldn’t even be shipped. So, now they are meeting and shifting their strategies to ensure they always have the golden screws in the future,” Thomas notes.

Combining these two inventory strategies gives organizations the best of both worlds – the low inventory and available capital of JIT with the security of JIC – and Classic Components can offer its partners this type of balance when it comes to electronic components.

“With companies like ours, we invest our own money to purchase items for customers ahead of time. We keep a certain amount in buffer stock, and we ship it out when needed and then we get paid by the customer. In doing so, the customers achieve their goal of having only what they need, when they need it, which is basically “just in time” philosophy,” explains Thomas.

To accomplish this, the company invests its own capital to secure “golden screw” items for customers and hold them in inventory until they are needed, however long that might take. This is a unique offering within the independent channel and only the largest, most financially stable distributors are willing or able to do so.

However, customers need to be willing to shift their strategy to accommodate a JIC philosophy. Organizations must have the foresight and awareness to anticipate future orders not yet placed and be proactive about securing that inventory required to ensure there are no delays when the product is needed.

Thomas adds that the items that have been difficult to find are not always complicated parts. OEMs require simple electronic components to make products in the same way nails and screws are required to construct a house.

“It is important to adopt a “just in case” philosophy both for less sophisticated items along with higher end items as well, to cover all the bases,” says Thomas. “To extend the construction analogy, if a house is built with nails and screws, it will also require expensive fixtures to be completed.”

The distributor can help secure these items for the OEM without asking for money up front and assist with the logistics of transporting the items when needed. They do this by being flexible in their approach and shipping material, whether upstream or downstream, including to contract manufacturers, sister companies, and subsidiaries.

Not many companies are offering this type of service during shortages, including traditional distributors.

Although authorized distributors provide added value such as engineering support, contractual obligations dictate all materials must come directly from the factory. This makes sense when the supply chain is operating as expected, and there are no global pandemics or other supply chain constraints. The current disruptions, however, are creating lead times in the regular distribution space of up to 50 weeks for parts that used to be available in eight to 18 weeks, a massive disruption that independent distributors can work around more easily.

Regular authorized distributors may also struggle to get parts because the contractual agreement that these companies sign prevents them from sourcing products in the open market. Independent distributors like Classic Components can lock in prices and delivery dates using its vast network of supply chains and partners for many months at a time. This ensures that the inventory will be there when the customer needs it and not sold to someone else.

“It is a philosophical adjustment. Companies have to look in the mirror and say: we built our organization on “just in time” and that is how our shareholders measure us, but we need to secure the “golden screws” to protect against any possible future disruptions,” says Thomas.

For more information, contact Classic Components Corp. 23605 Telo Avenue, Torrance, CA 90505; www.classic-ic.com; 310.539.5500; info@class-ic.com.

ATLANTA – The ECIA Executive Conference Committee is pleased to announce the name of the opening keynote session title, “FEAR(LESS)™ Mindset What's Your Story,” presented by Rebecca Heiss. Our brains aren’t built for this rapidly changing world… But they are adaptable. By consciously crafting a mindset that helps us lean into these challenges rather than treat them as threats, we’ll be able to avoid the burnout, frustration, and turnover that might otherwise plague us and our clients. And, perhaps most importantly, we can deepen the connections we had to the purpose and people that drew us into this industry we love to begin with. This session will provide tools to:

• Re-categorize stress as a strength that can drive performance.
• Utilize a 3-step scientific technique to shift stress mindsets from ordeal to adventure.
• Enable positive communication, ideation, and creative collaborations to lead through ambiguity with a beginner’s mind.

“The 2023 conference speaker line up is one for the books!” noted ECIA Director of Member Engagement, Stephanie Tierney. “The topic fits in very well with our theme, ‘Making Waves, the Power of You.’ Our committee has chosen the other two keynote speakers and will be finalizing the rest of the program in the coming weeks, so stay tuned,” she added.

Registration is open now. The Executive Conference runs October 22-24, 2023 at the Loews Chicago O'Hare.

The Executive Conference is an opportunity for senior management teams from the electronics industry's leading companies - representing the entire supply chain - to gather and address cross-enterprise challenges. Gain access to industry experts and knowledge, forge relationships that can make a real difference, and learn how to remove roadblocks to success. Plan to join this must-attend event - there is no other that offers an in-depth look at the electronics components industry and is as geared towards industry-specific education and fostering meaningful relationships across this section of the supply chain network. It's the one conference you can't afford to miss.