Spotlight On
Spotlight on Peratech
Jon Stark
This month’s spotlight is on Peratech with a focus on their CEO. CIE editor, Amy Wallington, talks to Jon Stark about his role in the electronics industry
J
on Stark’s background in the electronics sensing industry comes from his roles at MFLEX, a global flexible interconnect and packaging solutions company serving the smartphone and tablet market, where he worked as director of corporate strategy and marketing and then as VP and GM of Printed Electronics. Whilst there he successfully built a factory in China and launched a new human-machine interface product to mass market. He has served in leadership positions with several start-ups, and has been a consultant to several others over the years. Jon lives in California yet manages to lead Yorkshire-based force- sensing solutions company, Peratech, as its CEO. He’s passionate about fostering the innovation process in others and pursues this in his current role.
Which experiences have helped you most in your role as CEO at Peratech?
I’ve learned three key things to successfully take a technology to mass production. The first is to embrace accountability. To successfully integrate a technology into a mass production product, the CEO needs to ensure that everyone in the company holds himself accountable for successfully integrating its technology into that particular product. I've seen a lot of fantastic technologies come and go because the companies that invented them did not do everything possible to make sure the technology survived its first product development lifecycle and be included in a mass product launch. Too often, I see companies hampered by their own business models and transfer integration responsibility to another company. The fact is, no company will be more invested in making a technology work than the company that is bringing it to market. While it’s not important to do all the work in one company (and in
30 November 2016
many cases it’s too risky), it is necessary to ensure everything is done to effectively integrate one’s own technology into the desired end product, cost-efficiently, and with high quality.
The next one is that your customer’s
product development life cycle is the only timeline that matters. You have to deliver solutions in the development cycle your customer specifies. If you don’t, you risk losing the integration opportunity altogether or you have the added difficulty of displacing the incumbent technology on the next cycle. Most consumer electronics companies,
especially smartphone and tablet ones, follow the, “if it ain't broke, don't fix it” rule. They take on substantial risk each product launch to add new functionality in all areas of their product, so if they can achieve results with an existing technology (regardless of whether it’s yours), they’ll probably do so. Then your company really has to do something that's measurably different from the incumbent technology in a competitive way that also exceeds existing durability and reliability specifications. Finally, create a durable supply chain. Customers need technologies that are scalable and don’t pose a supply chain risk. No matter how impressive your concept prototypes are, if your supply chain cannot ramp up production from zero to millions of units per month in time for a product launch, you won’t get the order. OEMs refer to valuable technology in
terms of capability, price, durability, and availability, because their headaches don't end at great ideas - they just start there. My previous roles have taught me to
create a competitive advantage by embracing accountability, working within the customers’ product development lifecycle, and creating durable supply chains. Gaining the experience to create competitive advantage around these three lessons was the best training I could have had for taking a new technology to market.
What excites you about Peratech's force-sensing technology solutions and how do they differ to other technologies already on the market?
In any compelling electronics technology, there are a few qualities I look for: the unique capabilities of a component made
Peratech single point force sensors, with constructions thinner than a human hair, can withstand demanding temperatures and humidity while sensing the way human finger tips do
Components in Electronics
www.cieonline.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
