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Components search for design engineers

15th September 2017
Joe Bush
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The electronics design engineer of today invariably turns to online electronic components search tools for help in researching electronic components to use in a new equipment design or product revision. In this article Adam Fletcher, Chairman of the Electronic Components Supply Network (ecsn) reviews a new search engine dedicated to manufacturer authorised distributors that promises to provide engineers with invaluable additional information to assist in this process.

In our industry the use of component manufacturer or authorised distributor websites to find electronic components, technical specification overviews and full blown datasheets is common place. Reflecting the huge investment these companies make in these tools many authorised distributor websites are ultra-sophisticated. They frequently enable parametric searches for components based on very specific design requirements, which is a great way of focusing in on likely products from multiple manufacturers.

It’s also more time efficient than the old method of manually searching through a pile of paper documents, however well indexed. Many authorised distributor websites also provide a wealth of commercial information i.e. where the device sits in its product lifecycle, the current lead time availability and low volume pricing. Users of websites offered by authorised distributors with well-known brand names and solid reputations to protect are guaranteed that the information provided is of good quality, is up to date and is fully supported by the components manufacturer concerned.

Business associations develop an industry search engine
With no clear industry standard emerging for electronic components search websites and no commercial organisation able to comprehensively support all the relevant organisations it fell to the electronic components business associations to find a way forward. By their very nature, business associations are often member managed and are therefore closely linked to the wider business community that their members serve. It’s in the interests of all parties involved for these business associations to manage all their operations in an open, objective and fully transparent manner.

In the US the Electronic Components Industry Association, itself one of the largest members of the International Distribution of Electronics Associations (IDEA), resolved to lead the process of developing a comprehensive authorised distributor electronic components database based on agreed equal funding and technical support from all of its members.

ECIA established a cross functional industry team to define exactly what electronics engineers and component buyers required, how the site needed to operate and what ambitions for the database could reasonably achieved. The key parameters were – a) that all authorised electronic component distributors should have a randomised ranking in the search results, b) that the site had to be a real time system and c) that all transactional business be directly transferable to the B2B website of the buyer's chosen authorised distributor for completion. The purchaser could then log directly into their organisations’ account with the authorised distributor, which would contain their agreed terms and conditions of trade. Remarkably it only took 12 months before the system was established and trials were begun to ensure that it operated as expected.

eciaAuthorised.com
Following its initial roll-out in late 2015 the eciaAuthorized.com website quickly become established as one of the leading electronic components search engines in the US and many leading authorised distributors are today firmly committed to its operation. eciaAuthorized is now being deployed in Europe and the initial response across the UK electronic components supply network has been very positive.

Availability and pricing
Critically, eciaAuthorized, unlike other search engines delivers ‘available to purchase’ inventory information in real time. Initially, organisations were concerned about the confidentiality of their pricing data and the publication of electronic components pricing caused much anguish across the industry. Organisations have however, come to accept that global pricing for electronic components is fairly uniform as manufacturers strive to price their products to compete effectively in the market and inevitably, pricing available from the manufacturer authorised distributor channel will reflect this competition. It's surely a healthy sign that a quick look for a commodity part on the internet will invariably reveal differences in price between the same component from competing manufacturers and their authorised distribution partners.

Useful information for design engineers
Enter a ‘generic’, part of, or the exact electronic components part number into eciaAuthorized search function and it will find an ‘exact’ or ‘partial’ match. It shows the ‘match’ by authorised distributor in a random order along with the datasheet, and distributor information with their current ‘available to sell’ inventory and pricing data. Real time stock availability information for a specific product is very valuable for the design engineer as it gives a very quick insight into which variant (grade, package type, speed etc.,) of the selected product is currently being sold in volume.

If there are many thousands of components shown as ‘stock’ it’s pretty safe to assume that it’s being widely used by multiple customers. Conversely it suggests that a call to their authorised distributor is required to understand the current status of the component before designing it in. A quick chat with the appropriate field application engineer will not only answer the immediate questions but can also provide a better insight to how the component can be used and if any ‘technical subtleties’ need to be should be taken into account before designing a part into the system.

International and local industry associations serving the global electronic components industry and their members can be justifiably proud of the part they've played in defining a search engine that already goes such a long way to meeting the needs of all users in the electronic component procurement arena. That said, it will take a few years and further refinements for GlobalAuthorized.com to become the ‘gold standard’ search engine in our industry, and specifiers, buyers and sellers will be negotiating face-to-face for a good while yet.

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