Denial in the Electronics Industry



Denial in the Electronics Industry
Each of us denies some facts or likelihoods that we'd rather not face. But when much of the electronics industry denies a few strategically important factors, it's time to raise them up for full discussion.
Supply Chain

Authored By:


Beth Dickinson, TFI Marketing Analyst
Technology Forecasters, Inc.

Transcript


I suppose that each of us denies some facts or likelihoods that we'd rather not face. But when much of the electronics industry denies a few strategically important factors, it's time to raise them up for full discussion.
Here's what we've heard too many times.

1.Disasters won't affect our facility and supply chains.
As I write this, investigators are trying to get to the bottom of the devastating fertilizer plant explosion in Texas and Boston is on lockdown. Regular readers have seen our posts about sudden and severe manufacturing disruptions (Think Tank problem-solving, case studies, risk assessment, etc.).

This week while interviewing electronics executives about their companies' preparedness for potential disasters and plans for swift recovery, we were surprised to hear how many were unprepared. One of our facilities burned down, we survived it - but we don't have disaster recovery plans for our other visions." "Customers are not willing to pay for contingencies." "We have a plan to show customers, but I'm afraid it's insufficient."

The sad truth is that for some electronics execs, denying that disasters can and do stop the flow of materials and products - the life blood of revenue - is easier than developing a smart plan for mitigating and recovering from the unexpected.

Unfortunately, some of our clients - large and small alike - invest in developing best-practice plans and holding their teams responsible for updating and drilling them at least once a year.

2. We'll always be able to source the materials we've always designed into electronics. My colleague Dr. Harvey Stone said it well in his post, "Honey, We're Our of Tantalum and Running Low on Zinc."

Can you design out X? Yes you can! Think of CFCs and the ozone-depleting solvents we designed out of circuit-board cleaning. We need to face the fact that several substances are running out or being run out of our products by regulators and concerned customers. Requiring that your product-launch teams learn design-for-environment (DfE) principles is a good place to start to design your products with benign materials in ample supply avoiding price hikes from insufficient supply and gaining customer approval for your company's innovation (think graphene!) and responsibility (for people and planet).

3. "Continued industry growth is imperative." Thanks to innovation and Moore's Law, we are buying single electronic products that perform the tasks of a half dozen we used to buy. More hardware is being eliminated through smarter software and the Cloud. DfE shows designers how to "dematerialize" products. People are starting to believe the long string of sociological research pointing to an inverse relationship between having "more stuff" and feeling content.

Maybe I'm in denial about the strength of "We've always done it this way". But don't you think that of all industries the electronics industry should courageously face likely scenarios and use our greatest strength "innovation" to shift course and succeed despite them?

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