Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1379105
78 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2021 competing companies' products, and we must make sure that these products' lines never cross in any way. We also must make darn sure that we don't inadvertently expose one compa- ny's product or product secrets to one of their competitors. So far, this has never posed that great a prob- lem, but I see that it may change. We are see- ing a drastic rise in customer concern for hav- ing their new products stolen by a competitor. I believe this concern will continue to rise in the next two years, at least. Adding to this concern is the rise of the "anybody but China" (ABC) thinking when it comes to American OEMs losing their faith and trust in Chinese companies. ere is cur- rently a move to find suppliers with non-Chi- nese companies in Southeast Asia; it is some- thing we need to address immediately. While for years it was perfectly acceptable for Americans to buy components and other products directly from China, the trust in China (for whatever reason) is waning to the point where OEMs no longer want to deal with China. is is creating havoc with the supply chain as we've known it for the past 20 years. Part of this concern is, of course, to produce the intellectual property (IP)) that is being developed here by American OEMs. Once again, it is a matter of product security and patent infringement. We now must demonstrate our trustworthi- ness when it comes to security and the pro- tection from IP the to our customers. We are going to have to make them very comfortable that they can trust us with their products of the future. SMT007 Imran Valiani is an account manager at Rush PCB. He can be reached at imran@rushpcb.com. To read past columns or con- tact Valiani, click here. your pencils because every company in elec- tronics is going to be looking for you to take their products to market—quickly, efficiently, and productively. But one aspect of NPI QTA that we prob- ably don't talk enough about is confidential- ity. In the past, we have been judged by three "legs" of NPI QTA: delivery, quality and price. Now, I propose we add confidentiality as the fourth leg, and also the one growing in impor- tance. With so much innovation, many ideas and concepts are likely to get stolen, or I should say "seemingly stolen." By this, I mean that when a lot of companies are working on the same kinds of products at the same time, there is bound to be some cross-pollination of ideas that could lead to lawsuits or at least severe misunder- standings. And of course, much of the time we are all working on products with either no pat- ents yet, or best-case, patent pending. is means that our customers are very sen- sitive about who is actually building their prod- ucts and whether they are truly trustworthy. For these reasons, we must develop privacy and security systems in our processes that will alleviate our customers' fears of patent infringement or stealing of their new product ideas. We are all going to have to tighten our security systems to make sure that no prod- uct information in any way leaves our com- panies. It is a known fact that oen we will simul- taneously be building two or sometimes three With so much innovation, many ideas and concepts are likely to get stolen, or I should say "seemingly stolen."