counterfeit parts can inadvertently enter a supply chain. The primary sources of bogus parts are in China, where companies have found a lucrative business selling components meant to be destroyed. The illicit process works as follows. In the past decade, many of the used- up computers, industrial electronics and consumer devices have been considered junk and sent to China for demolition to recover recyclable materials. According to Marshall, recycling electronics is a “messy process, involving hazardous materials,” that many western countries would rather avoid. The Chinese companies will accept electronic junk, also called “e-waste,” but instead of presumed demolition, they strip off the electronic devices and attempt to resell components.
Although he admits it is difficult to say
where bogus parts come from, Marshall claims that most suppliers “are almost all overseas [non-U.S.],” and he estimates that “80 percent, and perhaps more, of the parts come from China.” He bases this high estimate on the fact that most counterfeit parts sources have been traced back to that country. Chinese companies have “built an industry” around bogus electronic parts, he states. A U.S. congressional study completed in 2012 confirms Marshall’s assessment of the counterfeit parts problem. According to the daily newspaper Wichita Eagle, the study reports that in 2009 and 2010, 1,800 cases of bogus parts were reported in the United States, totaling more than one million electronic components. It also claims more than 70 percent of the bogus parts came from China. Marshall says about five to 10 percent of the electrical components his company tests from broker sources are found to be counterfeit. At first, according to Marshall, the illegitimacy of bogus parts was easy to detect. The counterfeiting entity initially “would simply sort out the parts by pin count and package, regardless of what was inside them, then sand the top of the part and remark it to look like something else,” he explains. “Even if you failed to detect them as counterfeit, as soon as you put the part on a [circuit] board, you knew it was wrong because it didn’t work.” But the Integra vice president warns that counterfeiters have become much more sophisticated. “They’ve gone from parts sorting to numerous methods of counterfeiting,” he says. “More often, you will now get the right part or device function, but it may be used or have been modified.” The counterfeiters have also begun refurbishing used parts, cleaning and recoating them to look like new.
Aviation Maintenance |
avm-mag.com | May 2013 29
In fact, according to Marshall,
electronic components can sometimes look too new. “It’s a red flag,” he says. Unused parts that have been in storage over time usually appear less than new. “Things oxidize,” he explains. Paperwork accompanying an order for parts assures no protection against counterfeiting. “Original paperwork is usually lost anyway,” says Marshall. “And the counterfeiters can falsify paperwork, too.”
He says the obsolescence problem
that bore counterfeiting “certainly has accelerated over the past 10 years.” He sees the problem worsening, though perhaps at a somewhat slower pace.
Lab Detective Work The counterfeit problem has prompted avionics OEMs to seek out the services of companies such as Integra Technologies. Although many electronics test labs exist worldwide, they remain rather exclusive
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