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Speaking of this Week — June 27, 2003
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
By Christine F. Della Monaca
Speaking of this Week reflects on events in the electronics assembly industry every Friday.
The news this week has been as all over the place as the weather here in New England. The IPC Book-to-Bill showed the industry perked up in May, much like the weather. There's also lots of progress and personnel news, info on tradeshows past and future, an alliance, financial news, and some looks at the state of the industry. Let's get to work:
- First, of course, Northbrook, Ill.-based IPC — Association Connecting Electronics Industries' IMS/PCB Industry Book-to-Bill Ratio for May, which came in at 1.00. This shows some renewed growth after a dip in April, when the Book-to-Bill was at 0.97. In March, it was at a year-high of 1.04, up from 1.03 in February and 1.02 in January. Lookin' good. In the meantime, the IMS/PCB Business Report reflected that the IMS/PCB shipment index was 97.0 and the IMS/PCB booking index was 103.9 for May.
- Progress: Minneapolis-based Micro Control Co. had a very special visitor last week — President Bush. Meanwhile, Woburn, Mass.-based Masstech EMS has a new ERP program from Atlanta-based MAPICS Inc., and Madison, Ala.-based Nextek Inc. expanded its production operations to meet increasing customer demand. In other customer support news, Wilsonville, Ore.-based Mentor Graphics Corp. debuted the SupportNet KnowledgeBase, a support database that gives customers instant online access to the most up-to-date information on Mentor's products and solutions to commonly encountered design problems. Finally, Herzlia, Israel-based Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd. announced that Ravensburg, Germany-based Engineering Bausch und Ziege GmbH (EBZ) signed a US $500,000 contract with Tecnomatix for use of eMPower solutions.
- Personnel news: Nuremberg, Germany-based powerhouse Siemens Dematic AG's Supervisory Board named Johann Löttner its new CEO, while Binghamton, N.Y.-based Universal Instruments Corp. created the position of industry segment account manager in response to expanding business. Bill Marca will fill the position for the automotive industry, while Ken Stanton will do so for the military/aerospace and medical industries. Newcomer Milara Inc. based in Medfield, Mass, appointed Jennifer Peters and Gail Fekes of Reality Technology as a manufacturer's representative serving Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, and LaFox, Ill.-based Richardson Electronics promoted Wilson Lee to vice president of Asia-Pacific sales. Finally, Goleta, Calif.-based Indigo Systems Corp. elected Stephen P. Kaufman, a senior lecturer of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, to its Board of Directors.
- It's prime event and tradeshow season — indeed, I spent most of this week at a seminar — and the reviews are starting to come in on what's already gone down, as well as previews of what's to come. The recent Conference on Lead-free Electronics Towards Implementation of the RoHS Directive held in Brussels, Belgium earlier this month, jointly sponsored by IPC and the UK-based SOLDERTEC at Tin Technology Ltd., has gotten rave reviews all around, and it will be repeated next year. Meanwhile, the Minneapolis-based SMTA launched two certification programs, one for SMT Processes and one for SMT Systems that are intended for engineers with at least one year of SMT experience and competence in engineering math, that will be held at SMTA International in Chicago in September. Finally, IPC announced that Jim Gilmore, co-founder of Strategic Horizons LLP, will keynote the 2003 IPC Annual Meeting in late September in Minneapolis.
- Only one partnership this week: Universal Instruments and Yavne, Israel-based Valor Computerized Systems formed an agreement to interface Valor software products with Universal's manufacturing systems.
- Financial news, and this week it's all good: Milpitas, Calif.-based EMS giant Solectron Corp. reported fiscal third-quarter sales of $2.8 billion, in line with guidance for sales of $2.6 to $2.9 billion. Meanwhile, Philadelphia-based Rohm and Haas is looking ahead, predicting that sales for the second quarter should be 8 to 10 percent higher than the same period in 2002, driven by the favorable impact of currencies, acquisitions made in 2002 and selling price increases, while volume is expected to be flat, at best. Finally, Salem, N.H.-based StockerYale Inc. refinanced its Canadian subsidiary's credit facility with the National Bank of Canada.
- Finally, some looks at the current state of the industry: Washington, D.C.-based trade organization AeA says that U.S. high-tech goods exports fell 26 percent from $223 billion in 2000 to $166 billion in 2002, while Alameda, Calif.-based Technology Forecasters Inc. states that while the global electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry grew at an average of more than 20 percent per year from 1993 until 2001, the industry declined 4.7 percent in 2001 and 9 percent in 2002.
This just in: According to this week's Quick Vote, 38 percent of you say your company has invested a little in your corporate Web site, 28 percent say a lot, 21 percent say a moderate amount, 10 percent don't know, and an incredible 3 percent of you say your company doesn't have a Web site.Have some insight on the industry? See something you don't agree with? Think I'm right on? Send it all to me at mailto:christinef@pennwell.com.