Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1392944
JULY 2021 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 57 cause there's an excess amount of memory. At the same time, memory is increasing in its en- gineering and technological advantage. e question is, do we have the right volume to be able to keep the market moving efficient- ly, both in its availability as well as fair pricing? It's going to be an interesting ride. Johnson: What are your concerns in this cur- rent market? McMeen: e worst thing I could do right now is not meet my customer's build objective. If everybody is hoarding because of an expecta- tion that the parts are not going to be there in 20 or 30 weeks, that becomes a problem. But that's also why you're going to have a problem throughout 2021. In our case, we are redesign- ing to use products and components we can buy right now. And then we'll wait until the next cycle and decide whether we can buy the original part that was on the design or will we have to then try to do another buy of the alter- nate. You're going to have OEMs that are car- rying two sets of designs. e tier ones don't have this problem be- cause they control so much of the marketplace. ey've already got their forward contracts in place, and they are already getting preferential treatment because their contracts are already there, and their volumes are there. It's the smaller, medium-sized companies that cannot afford to put large amounts into inventory as a hedge for what the future is going to look like. Johnson: at's an interesting dynamic. is pushes the active management of procurement and contract manufacturing all the way up to the design team. McMeen: Correct. I've been doing this for over 25 years and it's the first time that I've seen people actually designing and creating alter- nates to be able to build the same thing, be- cause they expect this shortage problem to go on for 18 to 24 months. Johnson: Carrying two different flavors of the same product in your distribution channels— from an OEM perspective—brings additional risk with respect to field failures and field sup- port. McMeen: It becomes a challenge. But right now, you either do that or you hoard invento- ry. e whole auto industry had been built on the premise that we're going to build it just-in- time, everything is flowing in. But if you can't get the sensor components, for example, all you can do is either build and hold for retro- fit later, or you schedule periodic shutdowns where you don't produce at all. And that's a very expensive supply chain. And what about industrial devices, like air conditioners or water meters, things like that? Do I stop and wait, or do I build and then retro- fit, or in some instances, do a redesign around alternates so that I can continue to build nor- mally? Each industry is trying to figure that out. e whole global supply chain faced the same pandemic, and everything has been im- pacted, from the raw materials to the convert- ed materials to electronic assemblies. ose assemblies go into full systems, and the whole full assembly or system now must have all the component parts and the sub-assemblies all working to be there so that you can deliver the finished goods to the customer. Just one short- age can prevent you from meeting your deliv-