Tag: counterfeit

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The negative impact of the counterfeit threat has hit OEM and EMS companies hard. For many, cost reduction through clever sourcing is no longer an option as it is deemed too risky. How did this happen? I started out in the electronics business 32 years ago serving my time as an engineer in the Aerospace sector. Much later, when I joined one of the world's largest Franchised Distributors in 1999 I began to realise that every company I dealt with had a few "brokers" up their sleeve. This allowed them to make PPV or savings on their BOM cost. At...

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The electronics Media and Franchised Distributors are still blaming counterfeit supply on the "Gray Market". We have always argued that the true perpetrators are operating in the Black Market. The term "Independent distributors" was born out of a need to separate the good from the bad in this much needed segment of the supply chain. Independent distributors come in many shapes and sizes and not all are created equal. Component Sense enjoys being Independent because it allows us fill essential voids in the supply chain. We love being able to provide innovative solutions to age old problems. Our first line...

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According to the Cambridge Dictionary traceability is defined as: "The ability to discover information about where and how a product was made." End to end traceability of an electronic component is critical. Traceability is 'evidence' of the product being tracked through the entire supply chain. Traceability is confidence, but Inspection and testing are also vital to safeguard against counterfeits. Counterfeiters are improving their techniques and expertise all the time. We check all of our incoming stock upon receipt and then re-check it at the time of any order. Your testing procedures should start with a thorough visual inspection of the...

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If the chip manufacturers cannot produce products with consistent quality it really makes a distributors life difficult. You would expect exceptional levels of quality control throughout the manufacturing process of a six sigma (statistically) integrated circuit manufacturer. Wouldn't you? In the fight against counterfeit electronics we leave no stone unturned even when buying verified traceable stock. Here's an example of an ST Microelectronics part where the quality of the product label brought into question the quality of the parts. We received 2 lines of the same part number with 1 week between their date codes: Date code 1502 seal date...

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Component Sense CEO Kenny McGee took part in the EBN live chat yesterday (15 August 2013), which was hosted by Steve Martin (executive vice president of sales from Components Direct) and Hailey Lynne McKeefry (Editor in Chief at Datacenter Acceleration). This post has been created to abridge the discussion, remove unanswered or topics that weren’t discussed, in an effort to provide a more clear understanding. Slight grammatical changes have been made in order to create a sense of flow, as this was originally written in real time. If you wish to see the original chat dialogue, please visit: http://www.ebnonline.com/dialogue.asp?doc_id=266481 The...