Posts by GDCA
Counterfeit Mitigation: The Trouble with “Tagging”
August 21, 2013
When the subject of counterfeit mitigation and avoidance comes up you generally find a couple of areas that people focus on: standards, test/inspection, and tagging. Tagging can involve many things, including specially etched marks, marks that show up only under certain lights, rare earth tags, and DNA tags. In general, these marks rely one or…
Are PCs becoming obsolete?
August 7, 2013
Recently on NPR I heard that PC sales have hit a record low. With the growing touch screen market, even Windows is focusing their innovation and development on the tablet market and with operating systems like the recently updated Windows 8. Bringing together the best of both worlds is the “convertible” market, where your “laptop”…
CALCE Counterfeit avoidance: Tags won’t fix the supply chain issue
July 24, 2013
When it comes to avoiding counterfeit components, the CALCE and SMTA “Counterfeit East” symposium at the University of Maryland, College Park is a conference we look forward to attending. Counterfeit avoidance discussions continue to fall in a couple of camps: tags and tagging, test and inspection and quality/process control. On the legal side of things,…
Arrow ACT Masters: An Environment of Innovation
July 10, 2013
GDCA enjoyed the privilege of being a part of this year’s Arrow Electronics ACT Masters 2013 in Denver CO. Arrow’s technical sales force was trained in a centralized fashion while suppliers got a first glimpse of Arrow’s strategy and technical roadmap. This year’s theme celebrated the spirit of innovation by acknowledging the expertise of Arrow’s…
Counterfeit Components: More than parts — it is about people
June 26, 2013
With the dialog about counterfeits in the supply chain, it is easy to lose track of what counterfeits actually mean. Yes, they will hurt your business. Yes, they can lead to heavy penalties and jail time, but counterfeits can also lead to jeopardizing lives; a risk that could otherwise have been avoided. I am always…
COTS: A “reactive” good idea (continued)
June 11, 2013
To answer the question, we need to look at the issues of innovation from a different angle; namely economics and markets. Free markets are a wonderful concept as long as the motivation and incentives are aligned in the right way for all the players in order to achieve the set objective. So let us look…
COTS: A “reactive” good idea
May 29, 2013
Following a directive from the US military in the early 1990s, the defense industry made a shift from using custom embedded electronic components made to military specifications to commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components. Since the overall share of the DoD as a consumer was expected to shrink over time, this move to reduce costs took a practical…
Refurbished Boards: What works today may not be reliable tomorrow
May 15, 2013
Saying that something is “good enough for government work” is often meant as a joke and the reference implies “mediocre work.” The irony is that “government work” is often highly sophisticated; systems are designed and engineered to operate in the most extreme environmental conditions for a very long period of time. I recently had the…
ERAI Executive Conference: Gaining Momentum in the Fight against Counterfeits
April 23, 2013
Managing components at risk of going EOL requires proactive planning. If this vital step is not implemented, critical systems run into increased risk of exposure to counterfeits. Two topics that program managers never want to hear about are counterfeit components, and end-of-life (EOL). While it is possible to come across counterfeit components on active products,…
Sometimes Obsolescence is a Good Thing
April 9, 2013
Throughout my work with GDCA and all the issues around obsolescence, I have never come across someone who believes that obsolescence is something to be celebrated and welcomed. Everything associated with obsolescence is considered something to be avoided. The concept of planned obsolescence brings with it connotations of either designing a product to wear out…