Electronic Specifier Insights

In the past, remote working has posed a challenge for the manufacturing industry, with many of its tools and processes being rooted in old-fashioned workflows. The COVID-19 mitigation measures, which have led to vast swaths of the engineering workforce forced out of the factories and offices, have driven the need for a more flexible, distributed mode of operations.Computer-Aided Engineering and simulation tools can support this evolution, and MSC’s customer-centric move to flip their licensing model to allow for use in the home is proof in point.Roger Assaker, Chief Customer Engagement Officer of MSC Software, said: “We are adapting to the needs of our customers, and are also adding a helping hand to support their business continuity so they can continue to design, engineer and perform virtual testing outside their place of work. We are facilitating the access to our software, knowledge base and support to enable the creation of even more value with our tools, helping companies to maintain productivity and innovation when many manufacturing lines are down.

ITSA exists to provide a favourable operating environment for the benefit of the interconnect market and to provide a dynamic network for exploring and co-operating on mutually beneficial opportunities. Key to this success is the collation of key technology and market statistical data.At a gathering in London, John Biggs, Chairman of the association, and a selection of association members including LEMO, Harwin and Binder, explained the reasons behind the rebrand what ITSA can offer to its members as the voice of the industry.ITSA has a presence on several standards bodies where the aim is to influence both current and future changes to standards affecting the interconnection sector. These include the appropriate BSI standards committees as well as RoHS compliance and exemption groups like the Oko Institute and the RoHS umbrella group.Market conditions and dynamics are extremely important to companies and will affect their choice of markets served as well as how they go to those markets. The sharing of non-confidential data is an important part of ITSA’s mission and members consider this to be a very useful status check on their own experience.The association’s quarterly statistics and commentary provide members with accurate and prompt quarterly summaries on the status of the UK connector market. This allows members to compare their performance to that of their peer group.The statistics are also used to help assess the market annually. Members can use these assessments to review their own market development and strategy. Many members use ITSA’s accurate numbers to assess the quality of commercially available and expensive market reports.

In this period of uncertainty and even fear, it’s perhaps easy to get caught up in the myriad of negative headlines, and worst-case scenario outlooks. And not without good reason. Humanity is facing its greatest peace time crisis in several centuries. And when it’s all over, society as we know it is unlikely to ever be the quite the same, with a clear dividing timeline between BC (Before COVID-19), and AC (After COVID-19).However, always keen to look on the bright side of life here at Electronic Specifier, it’s here that technology is picking up the gauntlet. In the early responses to the outbreak in China, the country quickly leveraged the expertise of its strong technology, AI, and data sciences sectors, while its tech companies accelerated their healthcare initiatives. We should not forget that it’s not all doom and gloom and there are still some good news stories that need to be told. We all know that adversity breads innovation and technology is at the vanguard of the battle against COVID-19, whether it be using AI to help diagnose the virus, to deploying drones to deliver medical supplies, and this podcast aims to champion just some of those goodwill missions.Just this week Anglia Components has announced the formation of a COVID task force to coordinate and allocate available inventory and FAE resources to support customers designing or manufacturing ventilators and other vital medical equipment.Anglia CEO Steve Rawlins stressed that the company is doing everything they can to get the design and production of essential medical equipment ramped up as quickly as possible, giving NHS staff the tools that they need to save lives. In addition, Rawlins added that in order to make sure these enquiries receive high priority, the task force can direct Anglia’s FAE technical support and reserve any available inventory for these projects before an order is received – something the company would never do under normal circumstances.Listen to the full podcast below.

The coronavirus pandemic has rapidly shifted from being a mild inconvenience to something that is dominating our every waking moment - particularly given the UK Government's decision over the last 48 hours to close all pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants.In last month’s issue of Electronic Specifier Design magazine, we spoke about the cancellations, postponement, or depletion of certain trade shows around Europe. Now, less than 30 days later, those irritations seem a world away as countries begin their individual ‘lock-downs’ and we all begin to self-isolate.In addition to global health concerns, the fall-out from restrictions placed on the public (whether they be self-imposed or otherwise), are now starting to be realised, with the travel and hospitality industries particularly at risk, and our health service under increasing strain. What we will be left with when it’s all over is a matter of some conjecture. But what of the electronics industry?Despite the rapidly changing situation, we felt compelled to reach out to the experts in the industry to gauge opinion and glean some insight, judging the impact of the virus on electronics manufacturing, the supply chain, legalities and economic fallout.Please see a link below to the latest Electronic Specifier Insights podcast looking at the landscape of the electronics sector and the impact COVID-19 is having upon it - with contributions from the ecsn, Mouser, Digi-Key, and many more. Click Podcast icon.In addition, due to this rapidly changing situation, be sure to check www.electronicspecifier.com for regular industry updates.In addition, please see a link to the latest issue of Electronic Specifier Design magazine - March issue. Click here to read.

In the circumstances this was a decent effort, especially with the cancellation of Mobile World Congress hanging over proceedings.As it was over 900 exhibitors decided to attend. The test and measurement, software, boards and modules and interconnect sectors were particularly well represented. The ranks of the semiconductor manufacturers and component distributors were heavily depleted.No Texas Instruments, Microchip Technology, Analog Devices, NXP, Arrow, Avnet, Digi-Key and Mouser took its toll. These are the blue-chip companies of embedded world so understandably their absence had a knock-on effect on the attendance.When the exhibition doors closed, visitors numbered 13,000, which while well down on the previous year did offer some benefits. “The good news,” one exhibitor told Electronic Specifier, “is that many visitors arrived with a specific purpose or project, and with fewer visitors we had more time to talk to them, so some serious discussions took place.”There was of course no getting away from the impact of the coronavirus crisis.

At productronica, Electronic Specifier’s Mick Elliott caught up with all of the latest news, especially the exciting new announcements from the Keysight Technologies stand; listen to the podcast below to find out more about Keysight Technologies’ innovations launched at the show. Keysight Technologies also confirmed that next year they would be returning to Munich for the electronica 2020 show. Pico Technology is another test & measurement heavy weight, and the UK based company was present at the productronica show in Hall A1. At the show, Pico were showcasing their latest offerings in the T&M space, find out more in the podcast below. With 5G looming ever larger on the horizon, Advantest gave a European debut to a test solution allowing you to cost effectively test the new generation of 5G enabled radio frequency devices and modules, on a single, scalable platform.Advanced Thermal Test Systems were also present at the show, with an array of solutions allowing users to control the temperature of all type of units. LPKF Laser and Electronics were also at productronica, bringing with them and 100% carbonisation free PCB de-panelling solution. To discover more about the highlights of productronica 2019, tune in to the podcast below.

Heat sensors were certainly redundant at this year’s show. No one needed a sensor to be told that it was 36°C in Nuremberg. However, the extreme weather didn’t seem to deter the attendees turn up in good numbers for the biggest sensors show on the continent.Sensors have of course been the stars of the electronics components market in recent years, and no wonder. The automotive sensors market is predicted to grow to $36.4bn by 2023, and Internet of Things (IoT) sensor sales are estimated to soar to $22.4bn by the same year.So it came as something of a surprise when the German sensor and measurement manufacturers association, the AMA, announced that sensor sales had hit a road bump in the first quarter on 2019, dipping one percent compared to the previous quarter.This was a disappointing outcome following 2018’s ten percent growth in revenue. A slowdown in German industry compared the Q1 and the US vs China trade spat were cited as the culprits. “In rocky time the economy it susceptible to fluctuations,” Thomas Simmons, General Manager of the AMA told Electronic Specifier.“The economy slackens, the engineering and automotive industry suffer from a decrease in orders, and that in turn effects our sensor industry.”To dispel some of the gloom incoming orders remained stable – edging forward one percent from the previous quarter. And association members continue to be cautiously optimistic and expect a four percent growth in turnover in the second quarter as the sensor industry enables innovations in practically all application areas. And this were certainly in evidence on the show floor.