Providing strategic advice and market insights for optimizing manufacturing relationships and achieving profitable environmental strategies to clients in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia since 1987.by Pamela J. Gordon, TFI Founder and President
Electronics Manufacturing Workers at Bright Manufacturing in Mexico
Fallout from Foxconn – the Faces of Manufacturing
Strange Bedfellows in Sustainability: Facilities and IT
Example of data center designed with sustainability in mind
Applying a sustainability lens to business has resulted in strange bedfellows: the Facilities and IT departments. These two groups have not traditionally worked together, but more and more, they find themselves in the same meetings with a need to collaborate, especially as tight budgets require coordinated efforts to save energy and optimize usage of capital. more »
A successful 2012 for strategic electronics suppliers
SIPLACE machines similar to those in Zollner's new Silicon Valley location
2011’s Biggest Stories for Tech Industry Sustainability
2011 was a big year for sustainability stories in the tech industry, encompassing the good, the bad, and the “mixed”—from new restrictions on hazardous substance (RoHS recast or REACH) to environmental accidents (most notably Fukushima) to social responsibility (anti-slavery law in California) to new evidence for the profitability of sustainability (financial market boosts). Here’s our take on it. more »
Social Media – Finally Ready for Electronics Manufacturing?
by Beth Dickinson, TFI Marketing Consultant
By now, the benefits of social media for B2C marketing are clear — fostering intense brand loyalty, gaining valuable customer insights, and generating buzz. But in B2B marketing, particularly for electronics manufacturers supporting brand-name customers, it’s been more of a puzzle. What does social media have to offer component distributors, solder-paste makers, and contract manufacturers? Read on — if you look beyond viral videos, Facebook contests, and celebrity Tweets, the answer is “plenty.”
Today companies as varied as Newark, Indium, Creation Technologies, and Brocade are using social media to expand their networks and influence, troubleshoot product and process issues, serve customers, recruit employees and partners, attract business, and support positive brand awareness. more »
New Anti-Slavery Supply Chain Law: Are you ready?
This month we’ve broken the news about California’s Transparency in Supply Chains Act to too many people in the tech industry. The law requires manufacturers and retailers with annual global revenues of >$US100M doing business in California to prominently disclose on their websites their efforts, if any, to ensure that their product supply chains are free from slavery and human trafficking. Given that the law goes into effect January 1st, 2012, more companies should have known about this. more »
FAQ on Electronics Contract Manufacturing in India
Recently, clients have been reprising questions to us about the electronics contract manufacturing industry in India. TFI has been studying the Indian electronics CM industry since the late 1990s, when we introduced a delegation of CEOs from Indian CMs to Silicon Valley executives. Here’s an updated FAQ on the region: more »
Clarity for 2012: Prioritizing Initiatives for Sustainable Profitability
Today’s supply-chain executives are saddled with both traditional business initiatives (make products faster, better, cheaper) and customers’ new insistence on corporate responsibility (workers’ rights, environmental protection, moral supply chains). Throw in the unexpected, such as changeable economic conditions and floods in Thailand that affect the supply chain, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But setting and prioritizing initiatives to meet these challenges can be remarkably quick and reassuring. more »
Supply-Chain Leadership: Gorilla-sized leverage by pint-sized companies
by Anne Feith, TFI Senior Analyst
Few brand-owner companies (OEMs) enjoy the influence of industry giants like HP, Ericsson, or Sony, who can easily convince their large manufacturing suppliers to try something new. Most of our OEM clients are in the mid-size range, where normally it’s a struggle to get large suppliers to accelerate time to market, reduce cost of goods sold, and soften risks through innovative new practices. We recommend these steps for operations executives to maximize their muscle with larger manufacturing suppliers: more »
The Design Engineer’s Brain: Where the Supply Chain Begins
For 25 years we at TFI have been analyzing the electronics industry’s supply chain, from components, to assembling them in-house or outsourcing, to testing and shipping finished products, and to refurbishing and recycling them. This past spring, we examined the start of the supply chain by eliciting from 328 design engineers around the world how they think about the design process.
The top three challenges during the design process are 1) Just not enough time, 2) Incomplete information, and 3) Difficult to compare options and alternatives. more »
Our Thinking
Recent Posts
Post Categories
Leverage TFI
Central and Eastern Europe: New Industry Hub?
TFI Report on Electronics Design and Manufacturing in CEE
The CEE is emerging as a new force in Electronics Design and Manufacturing. TFI's in-depth report covers country by country industry analysis, top firms in CEE, logistics, and more. more »
TFI Business Intelligence
Get the most out of TFI's expertise
The most profitable way to leverage TFI: our turnkey Business Intelligence program gives you the consulting you need, when you need it. more
Our Clients Say
Technology Forecasters will always be the first company to come to my mind when people ask me for a source of information and services related to the EMS industry.
Paul H. Esling, Electronic Manufacturing Services
Texas Instruments
