Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1067105
36 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2019 tors. We work very closely with all of them to ensure that there is accuracy and integrity to the information of theirs that we publish online. I would say that we have an excellent relationship across the board with most major distributors, and a lot of regional and smaller distributors too. Shaughnessy: Where do you go from here, Dan? What do you see the company doing in the near future? Schoenfelder: We're constantly striving to improve our search experience, and that includes both the technical methods in which our search takes place behind the scenes and the visible user experience on our site. This is a day-to-day effort for us. It's something that we take very seriously, and we're constantly plan - ning and preparing for ways to improve the user experience. We feel like we have the best search in the industry, but we're not going to rest at that. We're going to keep striving to improve. Our goal is to be the dominant source for search in the industry. That's where we want to be and how we'd like to be viewed. Certainly, improv - ing our search capabilities is a huge priority, as well as adding to the data that we have avail- able to our user community and constantly striving to get more information is something that's critical to our success. Finally, we are working on what I referred to before as the API and our data syndica- tion capabilities so that we have methods for disseminating information, not just through Octopart.com, but through ways that can be utilized by enterprise-grade tools. Las Marias: Do you see the electronic compo- nent shortages easing up soon, or do you think this will persist in the next foreseeable future— two or three years perhaps? Schoenfelder: From the data that we have avail- able and the usage we have on our site, all indi- cations are that the current trends are going to continue. It's hard for me to say, from where I sit, what's going to happen even three, four, or five months out, but I believe that Octopart is uniquely positioned in a place that when this trend starts to subside, we will be one of the first to know. Las Marias: What advice can you give our read- ers when it comes to dealing with their supply chain management issues, especially during this component shortage environment? Schoenfelder: That's a good question. Do as much as proactive work as possible to under- stand the landscape of your supply base and the componentry that is part of your designs so that you understand what limitations you may have and how to address those. In my experience, before I was part of Octopart, I worked in the digital group at Arrow Electronics and was in distribution there for the better part of six years. Before that, I was at Flextronics in the contract manu - facturing world. I've had the good fortune to see this industry from several perspectives, and there's been a trend that I've seen over the last almost 20 years in this industry that there is less and less ownership of the manu - facturing and supply chain process by those who are doing the design work. While we focused a lot of in this discussion around design discovery of information, I think we're hitting on one of the other use cases for Octopart, which is, "How do I maintain and manage my BOM and avert risk once that design is stable?" This prevailing trend that I'm talking about is that those that do the designs are less and less involved in the manufacturing without sourcing of the entire manufacturing and supply chain process. Again, I would recom- We feel like we have the best search in the industry, but we're not going to rest at that. We're going to keep striving to improve.