The Paragon Electronics Group Blog

Watch John Mayes interview with EMSNOW at Southern Manufacturing

Whether you managed to go to the Southern Manufacturing show or not, you might be interested to hear the thoughts of our Managing Director,John Mayes. He chatted with EMSNOW’s Editor Phil Stoten on the Paragon stand, about the breadth of services provided by the group’s businesses, including our work in component sourcing and counterfeit inspection, recent investments in the EMS business that saw growth last year of 21% and the unique electro-mechanical assembly offering that makes JJS – no ordinary EMS Company.

Watch the Video here

We would be interested to hear your views about the show.

The Outlook for 2013

This time last year the outlook for the EMS market was somewhat uncertain. The global EMS market was forecast to increase by 4% to $217 billion, but from talking to other EMS companies, in whatever we are calling the sub $100m tier these days, it was quite a different picture.

It would appear that not all EMS companies appear well-equipped to handle the increasing level of services demanded by OEMs which requires their EMS partners to continually adapt their business models and develop broader skills and capabilities if they are to deliver these services and achieve their growth objectives.

Despite a general feeling of ‘gloom’ in the EMS marketplace, 2012 has turned out to be another successful year for Paragon. Our component distribution, pcb assembly and electro-mechanical contract manufacturing services businesses have seen growth from existing and new customers, with a resulting increase in total group revenues. 

There is no doubt that recent years have been challenging for the electronics market generally but, having said that, during such times opportunities emerge for the more agile members of the EMS community as OEMs seek to reduce costs and look to their EMS partners for increasing
levels of design, manufacturing and operational support.   

Paragon has continued to invest across the group, examples of this being the launch of Vigilant Components, the new SMT line due for delivery in January at JJS Electronics’ (www.jjselectronics.com)
UK facility plus additional staff  in engineering, production and customer service roles. Vigilant is our component distribution specialist providing sourcing services for long lead-time and obsolete components plus component verification, testing and counterfeit detection services. The investment at JJS is a complete new SMT line which will provide increased production capacity in response to some ‘bullish’ unit forecasts for 2013 being provided by a number of our customers.  

We hear a lot about the trends of "near shoring" and the policy of ‘build in the region - for the region.’ Our UK and Czech Republic  based EMS facilities are ideally placed to respond to this requirement and produce products for UK, European and US based OEMs who market complex, highly configurable
products and require a UK/CEE manufacturing location, nearer to their customers. With our cable assembly, box build, and mechanical assembly capabilities plus configure-to-order and order fulfilment services, our core skills and business model addresses this requirement and we anticipate our
growth continuing into 2013 and beyond.  

John Mayes, Group Managing Director,

 

Supply Chain Risk and Disruption - What could these three companies and events possibly have in common?

• A factory under siege from disgruntled workers, with the management barricaded inside
• A metal processing plant in the middle of farm land and all vehicles unable to move in or out
• A company on top of a hill surrounded by flood water but for just one road out

Yes, all were unable to continue to supply their products, but also all are examples of claims I have seen of companies ‘declaring’ force majeure or as they tried to claim ‘events beyond their control’.

There are many reasons why a supply chain can fail and not always as dramatic as a factory under siege, but all of these are genuine examples of supply chain disruption. Whilst we can all identify risks and often take appropriate mitigating actions there are always causes that cannot be anticipated.

Unplanned and unforeseeable events will take place, it is something you should accept and whilst you can plan and prepare for the most likely of causes there comes a point when you need to accept that disruption will happen. Who could have predicted volcanic ash would bring airports in the
UK to a standstill? or that tanker drivers threat of industrial action would create some panic buying of fuel?

Often the specifics of the risk itself can be irrelevant; as once you accept that there could be a disruption and have solid recovery plans in place then it is the speed and agility of the response in retrieving the situation that separates the best from the rest.

At Paragon Group we deal with risk on behalf of our customers, indeed we see this as a key part of our role and responsibilities and aim to ease those sleepless nights of our customers.

One company in the group, ISO 9001 and AS9120 accredited Vigilant Components, provides component sourcing, testing, counterfeit detection and verification services as well as supply chain management and point-of-use delivery options.  Paragon Electronics Group also offers Paragon Electronics Components’ innovative manufacturing solutions. The well proven ‘best-fit’ approach, supported by  partnerships with specialist EMS companies, centres on decoupling the supply chain from the assembly process to provides a unique solution to the challenges associated with outsourcing electronics manufacturing.  Our model is based upon two fundamentals; Rigorous management of supply chains is absolutely vital to ensure that all product is available when required, with the ability to respond dynamically to changes in demand; and when it comes to contract manufacturers,
one size does not fit all.

Supply Chain risk probably dates well before the 17^th century but the writer Francis Bacon may have been listening to one of the first Supply Chain Managers when it is claimed he said;

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.”

Did he know then that his name and writing skills would be to some people forever dogged by uncertainty?

As to the three companies what happened next?

All are real companies and real events.

The Russian factory was laid under siege until the police decided it what time to break up the dispute. It transpired that the issue was over ownership and the siege was led by a senior manager who had been fired the previous week. We resourced away quickly and Force Majeure was not accepted.

The Metal processing plant was surrounded by farms affected by the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Despite much legal debate at the time FM was accepted in this case, however the situation was quickly resolved.

The flooded or not flooded company claimed it was unable to supply, not because it couldn’t deliver product but from the nearby town its workforce were unable to reach the factory. FM in this case was not accepted. Canoes were not provided.

Whether legally these were the right decisions I am sure could be disputed, but in each case alternative plans were hastily put in place anyway.

Conclusion

We have to accept that uncertainty and risk is inherent within supply chains our approach can be summed up in the following quotation by Francis Bacon:

“If a man presumes certainty, he shall end with doubts, but if he will be content with doubts, he will end with certainties”. Francis Bacon 1561-1626

By being content with doubts and uncertainties and by planning appropriately we can manage our supply chains with a higher degree of certainty.

Biography

Professor Richard Wilding is Chair (Full Professor) in Supply Chain Risk Management at Cranfield School of Management U.K. one of Europe’s leading business schools and hosts the Cranfield Supply Chain Risk Forum www.supplychainriskmanagement.co.uk he can be contacted through www.richardwilding.info

Supply Chain Risk - An unforeseen supplier problem required a fast response.

On the first day back after a bank holiday,employees at one of our major suppliers were called to a meeting and informed that the company was closing and would be put into a voluntary liquidation. There had been no clues or any indication on that morning that at 11.00am the employees would be sent home. At that time machines were switched off and components left in mid operation, material in process was left on the shop floor and, along with the whole factory, all stores areas were closed including despatch where goods were waiting to be shipped.

Regular financial checks and careful attention to signs often associated with companies struggling commercially were carried out and with no real danger signs Paragon had still adopted the view for other reasons that this supplier was ‘one to watch’. In this case the owners, for reasons still unclear,decided to liquidate what appeared to be a going concern.

This supplier was nominated by one of Paragon’s customers and whilst there were opportunities to resource the cost of approving a new supplier and validating parts was deemed to be far greater than the potential cost saving.

However, 12 months before the forced shut down Paragon as part of its Risk Mitigation and Cost Reduction strategies approached a number of suppliers with a view to both benchmarking the cost and ensuring there were alternative sources of supply capable of meeting the technical capabilities
that the parts required. One of the parts in particular was hard to manufacture and the incumbent supplier had experienced technical difficulties. With this part Paragon decided to develop a dual source strategy due to the difficulty of the part to manufacture and to the criticality of the part to the customer’s finished product.

When the closure was announced Paragon quickly put into action its contingency plan. Drawings were reissued to the same suppliers that had quoted 10 months earlier and an increased Purchase Order was placed directly on the alternative supplier of the ‘difficult’ part. On behalf of the customer, Paragon negotiated with the administrators to release any work in progress that could be salvaged, and put
in place a programme to prioritise parts with the new suppliers. The customer supported the action by accelerating its approval process and within four weeks all parts had been sourced without any delays to production, or any disruption to the customer’s supply chain.

This situation serves as a reminder that supply can be disrupted at any time and often through an unlikely or unexpected cause. Being prepared for all eventualities is not something many companies can plan into their business continuity strategies. Accordingly, what must be put in place is agility and responsiveness ready to manage the unexpected.  In this case a little planning 12 months earlier, identifying that there could be problems ahead and our ‘one to watch’ program, helped smooth the disruption. With cooperation from a trusted supplier base and working closely with our customer, a serious problem was avoided.

- Murray Dilks

JJS apprentices receive their ‘Certified IPC Specialist’ certificates

Having completed the IPC-A-610 Application Specialist course for Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies, the four apprentices at JJS Electronics, who commenced the company’s comprehensive, two year, programme in September 2011, have received their ‘Certified IPC Specialist’ certificates.

IPC-A-610, is the most widely used global standard for the Acceptance of Electronic Assemblies and defines end product acceptance criteria for electronic assemblies from consumer through to high reliability products

Russell Poppe, Group Director of Engineering said “This is part of our on-going  commitment to training and quality and developing our own pipeline of skilled   engineers for the future. In order to achieve the certificate the apprentices had to complete a technically comprehensive programme covering soldering, terminal Connections, through hole and surface mount technology assemblies as well as understanding the goals and principles of IPC-A- 610. We are delighted with their progress and they should be very proud of their achievements so far.”

 

 

 

Providing Cradle to Grave Support

It should be no surprise to anyone that here at Paragon we’ve always been committed to providing
dedicated,on-going customer service and product support. Okay, arguably every business
says that in one way or another. Why? Because in any sector with a lot of competing businesses, customer service can be one of the biggest differentiators. Some in the electronics industry like to use the term “providing cradle to grave support” in the context of their customer commitment. But what does that really mean?

At the Paragon Electronics Group, we put a great deal of emphasis on the early stages of a product design. That’s why we have dedicated resources in the area of New Product Introductions (NPI),
in addition to our Engineering, New Business Development and Account Management
teams. Each new product is allocated to one of our NPI engineer’s, who report to our Principle NPI Engineer, a senior engineering post we created a few years back. These are all highly skilled people with fine objectives – and they understand customer support. We’re also firm believers in getting the processes right first time, so that the products can be consistently built, to the required quality levels in production volumes. It’s a simple concept that’s well proven in practice.

Perhaps key to our customer commitment, which may make us different, is a willingness to be totally open and honest. We endeavour to provide customers meaningful feedback about their
products and their suitability for production volume manufacturing – even if it’s not always exactly what they want to hear. It’s obvious really: if we find anything that helps us to improve the assembly processes, the NPI stage is the ideal time to pick it up and feed it back. Okay, so our customers may not
always be in a position to modify their designs to accommodate our suggestions, but we feel duty-bound to feedback those observations and make every effort to implement any appropriate changes to product or processes.

That said, we all know that building products in pre-production & NPI quantities can be a completely
different kettle-of-fish to producing assemblies in regular production volume builds. We constantly monitor our own effectiveness and increasingly involve our customers through the provision of Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) information. FMEA is essentially a procedure in product development that drives the analysis of potential failure modes. It helps us to classify failures by their severity and likelihood of recurrence. Our effective FMEA activity is based on past experience with similar products or processes, which helps our skilled people to advise on designing those failures out.

Our aim is simple: to remain close to our customers’ products throughout their lifetime. Then we can seize every opportunity to implement further improvements if or when the product is subject to design changes. In our experience, across our industry, well-intended NPI observations can often get
overlooked or forgotten. In contrast, our FMEA process ensures that those points remain on our customers’ ‘radars’ and that they continue to receive on-going feedback about their products. Who wouldn’t appreciate that?

Naturally, our support doesn’t stop there. We’re fortunate in having dedicated component specialist
businesses within the Paragon Electronics Group In the form of Vigilant Components and Paragon Electronic Components PLC. These provide various services to source ‘hard-to-find’ components and combat product obsolescence and avoid counterfeits all in the cause of ultimate customer support. That’s another big differentiator for us too.

For more information on our complete range of services visit our website www.paragon-electronics.com.

Paragon ‘runners’ take part in Corporate Relay Marathon Challenge

On Sunday April 29^th the first Milton Keynes marathon took place. Alongside the full marathon there was a Corporate Relay Challenge for which the Paragon Electronics Group entered two teams.

Heavy rain had caused flooding on part of the route but, despite these difficult conditions, more than 3,000 runners took part including 98 teams of four in the Corporate Relay Challenge.

The relay, which started and finished at Stadium MK, consisted of 4 stages of approximately 6.5, 8.5, 6.5 and 4.7 miles with each member running one leg each.

The Two Paragon teams finished 43^rd and 62^nd with times of 4.02.34 and 4.09.21

Captaining the teams and running one of the legs, Darren Scott, who works in Paragon‘s Group IT department and has previously run a full marathon, said ‘it was great to be part of the first MK marathon event. Everyone should be proud of themselves, for not only completing the course in such testing conditions, but for raising so much for some very good causes. We’re all looking forward to doing it again next year.”

Jane Green, a Customer Account Manager, who has also previously run a full marathon and ran one of the 8.5 mile legs on Sunday said, “the conditions were atrocious, but the determination shown by the runners and the support of the volunteers and spectators was fantastic and made it a great day for Milton Keynes despite the weather.”

The two teams have so far raised over £1200 which will be divided equally between Cancer Research & the MK Dons Sports and Education Trust.

OEMs …. get your ducks in a row!

Here at The Paragon Electronics Group, we love a good idiom. If you’ve read any of our other blogs, you’ll probably know that. So here’s another one for you: maintaining an effective supply chain is about keeping all your ducks in a row. If you’ve ever tried to round up ducks, you’ll know this is easier said than done.

No, we’ve not gone quackers – (sorry!) – it’s just that two decades of experience in the industry tells us that the supply chain is a critical aspect of an OEM’s business. Paragon’s supply chain management service helps to ensure that all elements of this are fully under control and enables our customers to achieve on-time deliveries and satisfied customers, avoid holes in their cash flow and prevents nasty surprises on their bottom line.   

Clearly, the more complex the product being assembled, the more diverse the bill of materials and required components and the more important it is to ensure that a sophisticated supply chain management process is in place.  

With this complexity comes the increasing possibility of an equally complex supply chain, along with all the challenges that come with this. Of which there are many. These supply chains need to be meticulously managed, which calls for close control of fluctuating lead-times, end-of-life (EOL) and obsolescence issues together with a robust defence against counterfeit devices.

Achieving this enables Paragon to ensure that the right components are in the right place at the right time. By ensuring comprehensive procurement consistency with an extensive network of global supply chain partners, we are able to safeguard our customers’ entire supply chain management processes. What’s more, because they are dealing with one component procurement partner, there is no division of spend – meaning that they can forget about the extra administrative costs associated with multiple suppliers.

So there really is no need to worry about the metaphorical ducks; you can leave them to us.

Would you prefer a pig or a chicken to manage your supply chain?

That may sound like a very strange question, but it’s one with a very definite answer. Indulge me for a few minutes while I give you the background.

Too many EMS companies don’t take full responsibility for their materials supply chain. This means that too many EMS companies pass supply chain issues back to the customer. The reason for this is that a lot of companies manage parts of your supply chain, but not all of it.

When we started The Paragon Electronics Group, we did it because we found (and still find) that you could almost get a whole solution, but not quite. Now established as a dedicated supply chain management specialist, providing a whole supply chain solution is all we do; day in, day out. Our customers know we don’t pass supply chain issues back to them because we are fully committed to their process.

So back to pigs and chickens then. And I apologise in advance to the vegetarians and vegans among you. Consider, for a minute, their role in producing bacon and eggs for a breakfast. Clearly the chicken had a role and was certainly “involved.” The pig, however, had a somewhat different role and could genuinely be described as being “committed.”

The bottom line? OEMs need to fully understand which suppliers are involved and which are somewhat more committed. Once you have a committed supply chain management specialist in place, you can really start bringing home the bacon.

We’re no ordinary EMS Company. But what do we mean by that?

When you think of electronics manufacturing services (EMS) what does this mean to you? If you think of contract manufacturing for PCB assemblies you’re probably not alone. Providing PCB assemblies is often seen as the cornerstone of an EMS company. Indeed, for the majority of companies, PCBA is the ‘be all and end all’ of their business. Here at Paragon, we’ve always been a little bit different and this is partly what we mean when we say we’re ‘No ordinary EMS Company.’

Of course, we do have customers who rely on us to deliver high quality PCB assembly services. But we also have others for whom we provide extended services where we take on additional responsibilities for cable assembly, box-build, electro-mechanical assembly and precision mechatronics assembly. For these customers, we produce a wide variety of products, cabinets and even, highly complex ‘machines’.

It makes sense really. Having led the way in electronics assembly for many years, we know that complex mechanical assemblies demand the same high levels of skill, precision, accuracy and consistency as their electronic counterparts. So, we bring together complex electrical, electronic, mechanical, pneumatic and electro-pneumatic assembly skills sets.

Thanks to our unique combination of expertise and experience, when customers partner with us, they not only reduce their costs but they also remove complexity from their business to enable them to respond more rapidly to unforeseen demand.

UK and Central European manufacturing facilities, a Europe-wide supply chain for electronic, electrical and mechanical components plus custom plastics, machined parts and fabricated metalwork, extensive electro-mechanical and electro-pneumatic assembly skills; are just a few of the ways we’re different and not so ‘ordinary.’ If you’re interested in finding out more about our proven precision mechanical assembly capabilities, please do get in touch.