Posted by Jenny Miller on Tue, Jun 15, 2010 @ 09:44 PM
In attending the CALCE Symposium on Counterfeit Electronic Parts last week in Arizona, I walked away both challenged and encouraged. I have much greater clarity on this issue...and it really includes two main parts. It was incredibly beneficial having all the different pieces of the supply chain present so you could see different viewpoints and better understand the challenges they face. Let me give you an example:
- IC Trends buys a part from a distributor
- We don't have a great deal of confidence in the parts
- We try to get support from the Original Component Manufacturer (OCM)
- The OCM is reluctant to give support and until last week I didn't know why...
- Now I understand that the OCM has economic reasons motivating their decision, but moreover they don't want to be on the hook for parts that they could once verify but now can't because they've been outside of their control
Back to the conference- the counterfeiting problem breaks down into two main pieces:
1. The size of the problem and how many people it touches
2. The complexity of the problem
The counterfeiters are in many cases better financed and becoming more and more sophisticated as time goes by. Our abilities to detect counterfeiting need to increase. I learned a number of new methods by which we can make that happen. Some of those methods are relatively simple and will be implemented immediately, and some are more complex requiring the acquisition of capital equipment and that will happen over time.
In the coming weeks, I'll be blogging and sharing with you some of the methods gleaned from the conference. We'll be putting out literature on the immediate steps that IC Trends is taking to become even more dependable as a partner against counterfeiting. Some of the things you'll see in the next month are:
-Full disclosure of the IC Trends Anit-Counterfeiting Program
-The specific in-house testing and partnerships we have to ensure reputable components
-An outline of our visual inspection techniques
-The steps that we are taking to come into compliance with prevailing and relevant industry standards
IC Trends has always been motivated to excel as a trusted partner in the marketplace. When our customers have the need to move outside their normal supply chains we want to be the first, last, and most trustworthy call they make to satisfy their electronic component needs.
Best Regards,
Joe Stafford
Posted by Jenny Miller on Tue, Jun 08, 2010 @ 07:24 AM
It's here! The CALCE Symposium on Counterfeit Electronics begins today.
In Part I of our blog looking forward to the CALCE Symposium on Counterfeit Electronics, we talked about the scope of the counterfeiting problem within the electronic components industry. Today we want to talk about the future: questions we're going to be asking at the CALCE conference to determine how we're going to attack this problem in the days ahead.
Our questions look to these areas:
1. Are there any industry wide initiatives to combat counterfeiting?
2. What is the role that the government is playing in all of this? How effective will their role be?
3. Are there any software initiatives associated with the component counterfeiting problem?
4. What is GIDEP doing about this matter? Are they providing listings of problem parts/vendors?
5. What are some of the best practices that companies are employing in this arena?
6. How do companies envision getting out in front of the component counterfeiting issue? How do they plan on approaching this problem proactively rather than reactively?
The CALCE conference promises to be a forum inviting these questions and hopefully providing strategies to employ moving forward.
Again, we're tweeting the specific stats that provoked these questions...follow us on twitter @ ICTrends to get the facts and figures associated with the staggeringly large business of counterfeiting.