Spotlight On
PCN and PTN notices that we’ve received on parts. Customers automatically get an email if a part they use is affected. Overall there is a long term trend for manufacturers to discontinue or make fewer batches of the larger sizes of chip passives: 1206, 0805 and 0603 as the volume consumer market (phones, tablets) moves to 0201 and smaller. This is where 90 per cent of the chip passive market is now so it is no surprise that manufacturers are increasingly reluctant to support larger sizes to support the small pockets of demand that remain. Our advice is to design these parts out if you can, even if they are nominally still available. In some cases, it may be possible to substitute a different technology like polymer capacitors. Otherwise you will be locked in a never ending spiral of lengthening lead times and increasing prices.
This year there has been a shortage of components. Has this had any effect on Anglia? What have you done to try to help customers with their inventory needs?
The shortages of passive components such as chip capacitors has actually benefitted us, because of our strong inventory, which we have managed well to support our loyal customers.
Anglia builds its business on strong relationships – supporting the customers
who support us. When we see shortages coming, we are not afraid to take on extra stock which means that we often have inventory when others don’t. We always use this to support customers with scheduled orders and other regular customers first. If stock is allocated to a customer we won’t sell it at any price. This can lead to difficult conversations. Our site gives live stock levels, and others can see that we have stock that we’re unwilling to sell to them. We’ve even had emails with screen grabs of our site asking us to name our price for the stock shown but we are honourable and don’t work like that. The kind of long term growth that Anglia sees is built on building long term relationships of trust with customers and suppliers.
In recent years, the market has been fairly stagnant but this year has seen a bit of a boom. Why do you think this is?
Customers who export in particular have had a good year – especially those that have a differentiated technology. Greater currency stability and a realistic valuation on sterling has helped and made the UK more competitive.
Overall, we’ve seen a perfect storm of factors drive the market up. Growth in high volume consumer markets like automotive and mobile has driven shortages. Customers and distributors have used up any stock that they had themselves as a result. They are now restocking as availability returns.
What is the distribution market like at the moment?
It is definitely true that the heat has gone out of the market a little bit, and Q4 looks slacker than the first three quarters of the year. Lead times are coming in especially on micro controllers which are now down to three months. This means that
www.cieonline.co.uk Components in Electronics October 2018 37
customers don’t book as far ahead. I think there is a little bit of uncertainty in the economy too which is weighing on sentiment. Overall, demand is very hard to forecast.
What current trends are you finding most exciting and why?
There is real excitement in analogue at the moment. The Internet of Things is driving growing interest in sensors, with loads of very clever new designs coming out. There is a lot momentum from the IoT now. The best designs are achieving good volumes. A lot of distributors are too impatient in their approach to the IoT market though. There is a very long design cycle – 18 months is typical. The time for an M2M module based design to get to market can be as long as for an FPGA, we find. There is a lot of new design going on at the moment – medical is a fruitful area. I’m very bullish overall.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I’m a keen Sheffield Wednesday fan – though pressure of time means I watch matches on TV more often than not. We’re having a mixed season – mid-table at the time of writing. I can’t see us achieving great things. Other than that, I enjoy music, cinema, walking my chocolate Labrador and spending time with the family at the weekend as I travel a lot on business.
www.anglia.com
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