INDUSTRY ROUNDTABLE
Roy Phillips, MD of Intelliconnect
Eric Lakin, Vice President Finance and Strategy, Smiths Interconnect
builds. We’ve always been very strong at forecasting and planning and managing capacity and materials, but forecasting the next few weeks became challenging, never mind 12 months or 3 years.
Brendan Farley, Managing Director of Xilinx EMEA and VP of Wireless Engineering
(UK): “Brexit hasn’t really had a huge impact on us due to our major export markets outside the EU, although we’ve had to pay more attention to currency fluctuations and transportation costs plus adopt some of our Rest of World export procedures for exporting to the EU as well. Brexit has proven relatively minor for us compared with the pandemic. “When the pandemic first hit, we saw a sudden change in customer ordering patterns, most of which usually give us 6 – 12 month schedules. Overnight that changed – end users had stopped investing and there was a general reluctance to commit to stock right down the supply chain. China had been shut down for over a month and many of our customers use our parts alongside components from China, so although we could still supply, they couldn’t complete their
“We had started putting distanced working practices in place a few weeks before the first lockdown, but with some staff shielding and others with no childcare when schools closed, managing the very unpredictable flow of orders was a challenge unlike any we had faced before. Past economic events may have affected one or two industry sectors - our products are used across so many we are fairly well buffered - but this time every industry was affected. We did see an immediate surge in demand for our products used in intensive care equipment, with customers wanting 4 – 5 years’ worth turned around in a matter of weeks, which we were able to fulfil – one example was a special LED used in nebulisers.
“There is still global uncertainly although the position for the UK looks more promising. Over the last few months we are starting to see a return to more normal ordering patterns. Last year, our longer-term development projects had to be put on hold to focus on ensuring we continued to meet the demands and expectations of our customer base throughout such an unpredictable time, but these are now being resumed. If restrictions are lifted in the summer then we plan to reopen our office, although we have seen some benefits to home working and are looking seriously at taking a hybrid approach to certain roles going forwards.”
Steve Rawlins, CEO, Anglia Components: “In the past 18 months, Anglia’s sales have broadly tracked the market. There’s naturally been some Brexit anxiety, but we carried out extensive research to ensure we were fully
Steve Rawlins, CEO, Anglia Components
prepared for a no-deal outcome, and we quickly established that tariffs would only have a minor impact on cost of acquisition. Fortunately, for Anglia it’s mostly business as usual. We already hold high levels of stock in the UK and dealing with the EU is now essentially no different to dealing with other regions, and we’ve been doing that for many years.
“With regards to COVID, we are able to take the long-term view. We’ve focused strongly on supporting our customers and staff through a difficult year. We have worked hard to ensure that all customers got the supplies that they needed to sustain their business, particularly those getting vital medical equipment to hospitals and other treatment centres. The market will recover, and we’ve kept our dedicated team together to put us in a strong position when it does.
Brendan Farley, MD of Xilinx Europe: “While the last 18 months have been challenging in some respects, as we navigate the ‘new normal’ and as many employees continue to work from home, this certainly hasn’t slowed the pace of innovation at Xilinx. Over the last year, we’ve continued to make strategic developments to meet the diverse needs of our customers. In May 2020 for instance, we announced the industry’s first 20nm space- grace FPGA for satellite and space applications. In September 2020, we revealed the T1 Telco Accelerator Card for Open RAN (O-RAN) distributed units (O-DUs) and virtual baseband units (vBBUs) in 5G networks. Plus, Xilinx’s Data Center business unit unveiled a range of new data center products and solutions, including a new family of Alveo SmartNICs, smart world AI video analytics applications, an accelerated algorithmic trading reference design for sub- microsecond trading, and the Xilinx App Store. These are just some of Xilinx’s products
MAY 2021 | ELECTRONICS TODAY 11
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 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74
