Passing Storm or New Normal? How Should We Think of Today's Electronics Supply Chain?

Moore's Lobby: Where engineers talk all about circuits

In this Industry Tech Days 2022 keynote panel discussion, we get to hear from three industry leaders:

- Michael Knight, President of the Exponential Technology Group and Senior VP of Corporate Business Development at TTI.

- Jeff Newell, Senior VP of Products at electronics distributor Mouser Electronics.

- Misha Govshteyn, CEO of MacroFab, a contract manufacturing company serving the electronics industry.

You don't thrive in the turmoil of the electronics industry without seeing challenges as opportunities. This is evident throughout this discussion. Misha Govshteyn demonstrated this attitude as he reflected on the last couple of years:

It's messy, but I got to be honest with you. I love It. We're in wartime mode, and I think we're trying to build a very different model for how to build product and how to do manufacturing. Believe it or not, it's actually very difficult to do without a crisis.

Jeff Newell also has a lot of positive things to say about the unique opportunities of our current situation, including:

If you give the engineers time to really think and create versus having to go to meetings and some of the overhead things associated with working in an office environment, I think we're going to see a lot of cool things come out of that environment…I think the number of new products is going to accelerate as we get through the next few years. If I were an engineer in today's world, I'd be very excited about that.

This is a spirited discussion, and everyone from executives to engineers and students can learn something from it. Our Moore's Lobby host, Daniel Bogdanoff, leads a discussion that includes:

- Gray and black market products and their relation to e-waste

- Component engineers? What are they and why your company might need them

- Why EE hardware engineers might be undervalued in the market

- Advice for early career and student engineers