Zeev Efrat, CEO of Cybord on Component Shortage Disruption:
This is one of the biggest challenges facing the manufacturing industry and seems set to last well into 2022. After all, we can’t just build
semiconductor fabs at the drop of a hat – it takes a long time and costs billions. The market faces an unbalanced situation where some companies stockpile and make
a good profit.
The supply chain cannot stay “clean” when there are so many opportunities to make a nice profit, and it is probably here to stay. But worse than no components are fake components or components that are not fit for purpose. And while lab or batch testing of incoming parts is a good start, it will not provide the whole picture. It’s like trying to test the entire population of the US for COVID every day.
The industry can only mitigate the problem with a ‘Zero-Trust’ complete component traceability approach. Zero-Trust is already adopted at the software level but not yet at hardware. It only exists when every part is inspected and becomes part of the industry’s typical routine. According to CPO Magazine, “Zero Trust Manufacturing Approach Key to Balancing Complex Supply Chains and IoT Device Security”
Cybord customers are feeling a little smug right now with the real-time component inspection system they are running. Some are using our software to inspect components as they come into the facility using a custom piece of reel-to-reel equipment. This is ok as long as your gray market content is low. But most are using the software, which interrogates the images taken by the placement head on the line, identifies counterfeits, damaged, old, or incorrect parts immediately, and provides granular traceability that drive process and performance improvements.
Customers from both the OEM and EMS sectors see this “every single part inspected” solution as the only way to mitigate the risk of buying on the open market.
Read the full article here.