Spotlight On
A spotlight on Solid State Supplies
This month’s spotlight is shining on Solid State Supplies, a focused distributor serving the electronics OEM community in the UK. CIE editor, Amy Wallington, talks to managing director, John Macmichael who gives us an insight into Solid State Supplies and some current industry trends
transformed the operation from running at a loss with an annual revenue of £3.4m to nearly five times that total today - posting a £16.5m revenue for FY2015 - and commanding healthy profit margins. During that period he has been instrumental in the acquiring of 2001 Electronics and Ginsbury Electronics. Over the course of his career, John has held a series of high level executive roles with the likes of Steatite, Comlinear and Breckenridge Technologies. Prior to this he gained hands-on experience in development and application engineering roles with GEC. John is a member of the leadership team at respected industry body the Electronic Component Supply Network (ECSN). He has a degree in Electronics & Communications from Coventry University.
John Macmichael J
ohn Macmichael is managing director of value-add distributor, Solid State Supplies Ltd. He has been with the company for over 11 years. Since taking charge in 2010, he has
26 February 2017
How is the electronics supply chain changing and what is Solid State Supplies doing to address this?
It’s no secret that the engineering teams at OEMs are having their resources stretched. In most cases, they don’t
Components in Electronics
have the number of people that they did in the past. At the same time, the pace at which development cycles must be executed is continuing to accelerate, with time-to-market pressures becoming more intense and windows of opportunity getting smaller. As a result, OEMs expect their supply chain partners to step up and cover the shortfall. Things are exacerbated further by the broadening spectrum of applications that OEMs’ engineers are finding themselves involved in - often going outside their comfort zone. In order for them to complete the projects they’ve been given, increasingly they will need to rely on knowledge disseminated from their distributor’s FAEs and technical support staff, to supplement their own capabilities. Distributors used to take the view that employing generalist FAEs was enough. We recognised a long time back that things were heading towards a point where this would no longer be adequate and then responded accordingly. OEMs now need to converse with highly specialist professionals that can help with the detailed work.
At Solid State Supplies we have always positioned ourselves as a technically-led distributor and the dynamics that are now influencing the electronics business are making the work we do of ever greater necessity. This has not only allowed us to grow both our top and bottom line figures, it has also meant we’ve been able to expand our workforce and broaden our linecard (GSI Technology and Kemet being among our latest
additions). We have received industry recognition in the process too, picking up several prestigious awards in recent years. We regard ourselves as far beyond the confines of a conventional distributor. Stocking/shipping components is just one small part of what we do. The company has taken a more sophisticated approach when it comes to engaging with our customer base. We are always looking for innovative new services we can provide - such as a direct to pick-and-place offering, bake-and-seal operations, configuration of single board computers/embedded modules, device programming, firmware version control, etc. The company also organises regular in-depth seminars/workshops through which we can impart technical know- how to our customers.
Which are the key areas where OEMs need the greatest technical support?
The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) is an area where activity levels are ramping up dramatically. Here engineering professionals (whether they are at a large OEM or SME based) need access to technical expertise in relation to wireless technology and embedded systems. They also want assistance when it comes to integrating the respective RF and processor modules together and implementing the associated software. It’s one thing to come up with a workable prototype, but taking this all the way through to an optimised design that is ready for volume production is a
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