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Safe and sound: how secure are IoT-enabled medical devices?

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IOT medical tech

Last month the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an advisory warning of vulnerabilities concerning several medical IoT devices that could lead to data breaches.

These insecurities included buffer overflows, integer underflows, the improper restriction of operations, race condition, argument injection and null pointer dereference.

What’s more, all were described as being remotely exploitable by anyone with a low level of skill and knowledge.

So, how secure are the IoT-enabled medical devices already in use or in the pipeline?

And, aside from the obvious patient care benefits, what risks may IoT also be delivering?

The IoT revolution in healthcare

IoT has been given a clean bill of health in terms of its potential for growth in future medical device applications.

Between 2018 and 2024 it is expected to see a CAGR of 24% – and some uses, such as implants, scaling up each year by 30%.

It’s not all directly about saving lives, however.

One of the biggest drivers of growth is the rapid adoption of healthcare information systems. In addition, there has been widespread adoption of IoT devices for connected security cameras – according to Aruba Networks, 87% of US healthcare organisations use these devices for tracking high-value medical equipment.

Other cases have more direct relevance to patient care. These include monitoring vitals, an increasing reliance on cloud-based big data for diagnostics and improving device accuracy and connectivity.

What IoT technology offers, above all, is remote monitoring, accuracy, speed and efficiency. It promises to revolutionise the traditional paper-based healthcare treatment by simplifying access to real-time patient data and remote patient monitoring.

IoT devices in healthcare

A quick review of some of the remarkable devices that are already being trialled – or are already in use – would include:

  • CycoreThis remote monitoring cuff reduces the severity of disease-specific and general symptoms among patients with head and neck cancer during radiotherapy.
  • OpenAPSThis open-source initiative stands for Open Artificial Pancreas System. It not only gauges the amount of glucose in a patient’s bloodstream, but also delivers insulin when required.
  • Ingestible sensorsProteus Digital Health leads the way here. It has developed the first FDA-approved drug with a digital tracking system. Its pills dissolve in the stomach and produce a small signal that is picked up by a sensor worn on the body. This data can confirm the patient is taking prescribed medication as directed.
  • Cardiac careThere are many wearable and invisible devices in development that allow real-time data from a patient’s heartbeat to be analysed by AI. Alerts can be instantly issued to the medical support team.
  • RadiologyDevelopments are being made to combine IoT, machine learning and cloud technology to better manage workflows which are dependent on medical scanning devices. These optimise their availability and required downtimes.

Will secure data be an IoT casualty?

Electronic medical devices are already subject to intense scrutiny.

  • Risk control is placed squarely at the feet of medical OEMs by the European Medical Devices Regulations (MDR).
  • The updated ISO13485 has a similar focus on better risk control, improved supplier management and more detailed record of each stage in the device’s design and development.
  • The complex rules of CE marking also need to be adhered to for any devices intended for sale in European markets.

The medical market already requires better traceability of components used in devices throughout the supply chain, more detailed technical documentation and more rigorous auditing during design and manufacture. It also necessitates ongoing clinical evaluation and post-market clinical follow-up.

And now, medical OEMs also need a partner who fully understands and can implement the strictest security processes and procedures for data transference.

The challenge of IoT

Healthcare data security breaches is rapidly becoming one of the biggest challenges that healthcare organisations face – hacked healthcare data fetches 10 times as much on the criminal market as credit card data does.

What’s more, a research group did not need too long to hack into a connected pacemaker, where they found several potentially life-threatening vulnerabilities caused by inadequate authentication and encryption practices.

In recent years in the US alone, there have been nearly 500 breaches reported annually, affecting 5.6 million patient records.

The recent Vectra 2019 Spotlight Report on Healthcare indicates that one cause of this is the proliferation of healthcare IoT devices.

It also goes on to identify other equally significant causes unrelated to the devices themselves:

  • A lack of network segmentation
  • Insufficient access controls
  • A reliance on legacy systems

In addition, the report identifies gaps in policies and procedures that can result in errors by healthcare staff. Another investigation discovered that the majority of breaches are created by unwitting internal actors (59%) rather than criminally-minded external ones (41%).

Let’s just pause here: as important as data security must be taken by medical OEMs there is also a much wider problem at play.

This can be summarised as:

  • Healthcare organisations often can’t afford to have their systems down to be patched, even for just a few hours – they need to be able to operate at all times.
  • As a result of this, outdated systems and software have become common – and many legacy systems lack what are, in today’s environment, essential cybersecurity controls.
  • Compounding this is that, due to a lack of training or the needs of emergency situations, a lot of well-planned protocols, procedures and security controls are being overlooked by medical staff.

The healthcare IoT: our part in protecting patients and patients’ data

It is clear that ensuring security in an IoT-driven healthcare system requires joint efforts from the providers and manufacturers of IoT devices and the healthcare organisations themselves.  

Yet, it remains the responsibility of those who sell medical IoT devices – and their manufacturing partners – to ensure that two thorough health checks are always undertaken.

The first is to introduce new ways to monitor patients and equipment while improving care and lowering costs.

The second is to ensure that these devices are 100% data secure in their operation. Connected devices – from Wi-Fi enabled infusion pumps to smart MRI machines – must not increase the attack surface of other devices that are sharing their information.

Here are the basic security actions that must be taken at the design and production stages:

  1. AuthenticationOEMs should issue certificates for healthcare devices. These will validate identities to make sure that only authorised users or services can access the device. 
  2. EncryptionDevices must communicate via an encrypted link to ensure that healthcare data is transmitted privately. 
  3. IntegrityA certification process must be in place so that messages can be signed. This ensures that when the message is received by another device it can be verified as unaltered and to have not been intercepted. 

If you’d like to discuss your latest IoT-enabled medical NPIs, our team are always happy to connect

Medical miracles: the British and Irish med-tech start-ups making waves in 2019

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Medical electronic manufacturing

Med-tech is booming.

And while established market players continue to innovate and scale their businesses, the sheer numbers and stability of med-tech start-ups establishing themselves is sure to see a significant dint in the market share of the larger companies over the next few years.

Let’s take a look at the med-tech market across the world to see:

  • Which sectors are driving this growth
  • Who the established OEMs are
  • Which British and Irish start-ups look like being the ones – among literally thousands – to watch

Med-tech under the microscope

In 2016, approximately 12,200 patent applications filed with the European Patent Office in the field of medical technology – this represents nearly 8% of all applications.

At the same time, it has been estimated that as much as 10% of gross domestic product is spent on healthcare. And around 7.2% of this is accounted for by medical technologies.

 

Med-tech is big business: the European medical technology market, responsible for about a third of the world market, has been estimated at roughly €110 billion.

What’s more, it’s growing at a phenomenal rate as new technologies, new materials and new ways of delivering health care rapidly coalesce.

In vitro diagnostics is the largest sector, followed closely by cardiology – with both these areas predicted to see around 6% CAGR leading up to 2022.

 

Below we survey other key areas where med-tech is stridently on the rise.

Oncology

 

Global oncology spend is forecast to continue rising and to reach $200 billion by 2022.

Growth is centred on new emergent techniques such as:

  • Gene therapy
  • Nano-technology
  • Immuno-oncology
  • 3D cell printing

Key players include:

  1. Prostmate
  2. Litebook
  3. Genentech
  4. Arcus
  5. Rakuten

Imaging Diagnostics

In the UK alone, the NHS performs over 45 million imaging procedures each year.

These include:

  • 25 million X-rays
  • 5 million ultrasound scans
  • 5 million CT scans
  • 4 million MRI scans

The UK’s diagnostic imaging equipment market is predicted to reach $2.63 billion by the end of 2020, with key players including:

  • Carestream Health Inc
  • Fujifilm Holdings
  • GE Healthcare
  • Philips Healthcare
  • Siemens Healthcare

Medical wearables

More than 80% of consumers are willing to wear fitness and health technology devices, such as smartwatches, ECG monitors and blood pressure monitors.

 

The wearable medical device market is forecast to be worth €24.4bn by 2023, with key players including:

  1. Fitbit
  2. Apple – iWatch
  3. Xiaomi
  4. Samsung
  5. Omron

Cardiology

 

With real-time imaging now available to be used during surgery and other procedures, the increasing uptake of such devices will see the global cardiac imaging software market reaching the $530 million mark by 2023.

Key players include:

  1. Siemens AG
  2. GE
  3. Koninklijke Philips
  4. Canon
  5. Fujifilm

Enter the start-ups

Surveying the UK health tech scene, the Office for Life Science calculates that 80% of the businesses in the industry are SMEs. These employ 23% of the industry total and generate 10% of the turnover.

It seems highly likely that, as these grow and new start-ups join them, their share of employees and turnover will grow.

Information stateside corroborates this with med-tech start-ups appearing in the top 10 industries of the most profitable small businesses – returning an extremely healthy net profit margin of 12.1% on average.

In many ways the rise of the start-up is facilitated by the agility of small businesses to move fast – and in this they are helped greatly by partnering with sophisticated and experienced EMS partners.

At Chemigraphic we offer:

Five start-ups to watch out for

When it comes to choosing start-ups that are going to disrupt the med tech sector there is no shortage of candidates.

We wouldn’t particularly disagree with any of the choices in the following three lists, even though there is minimal crossover between them.

  1. Valuer’s Best med-tech start-ups in Europe
  2. EU Start-up’s 10 European start-ups revolutionising healthcare
  3. Silicon Republic’s 20 of Europe’s top health and med-tech start-ups

We’ve decided to cast our net narrower and name five start-ups turning heads and profits in the UK and Ireland.

And we’ve picked just one from the five main areas of growth in the sector.

Ladies and gentlemen, the winners are…

Oncology: Kheiron Medical Technologies

According to Breast Cancer Now 62,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in the UK. These figures include diagnoses of DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ), an early form of breast cancer.

Breast cancer survival in the UK is improving, and has doubled in the past 40 years due to a combination of improvements in treatment and care. But earlier detection through screening and a faster diagnosis can still drastically improve these figures further.

The problem is that radiologists are overworked and in short supply.

Kheiron Medical Technologies, a London-based med-tech start-up, founded in 2016 by Dr Peter Kecskemethy and Tobias Rijken, uses machine learning to help radiologists detect early signs of cancer with greater accuracy and faster than ever before.

The start-up has won Best New Radiology Software in the 2019 EuroMinnies and Best AI Product in Health at the CogX 2019 Innovation Awards. Its breast screening product, Mia (Mammography Intelligent Assessment), is the first to receive a CE Mark in deep learning and radiology.

Kheiron has just raised $22 million in a Series A funding round that will be used to scale the already impressive clinical validation of Mia achieved in multi-centre clinical studies. It is already working closely with the U.K. National Health Service (NHS), supported by government funding, to deploy Mia across pilot sites both in England and Scotland. In addition, it has also received funding from the E.U. Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme to scale across the EU.

At present, there are numerous start-ups raising funding to use AI and machine learning to help identify new treatments and diagnoses for other diseases, but Kheiron has achieved significant backing and interest from professional quarters, commercial backers and medical organisations.

Medical wearables: GiveVision

As we’ve highlighted before wearables are set to transform the med-tech field.

As devices and battery requirements reduce in size and data collection becomes more sophisticated, what started as a consumer trend is quickly realising potential in the medical field to monitor patients remotely.

The med-tech start-up we are singling out is taking the concept of wearable glasses, rather than monitoring devices, in a much more successful direction than Google has managed in its consumer-focussed augmented reality glasses.

London-based GiveVision is dedicated to providing innovative solutions that empower blind or visually impaired people to eradicate the barriers that prevent them from experiencing full and independent lives within mainstream society, education and employment.

With over 285 million people blind or visually impaired people across the globe, GiveVision has been working with organisations such as the RLSB, RNC, and centres and societies for the blind to develop a solution for people diagnosed with low vision due to central vision loss (e.g. AMD, Stargate’s) and conditions affecting the whole visual field (e.g. albinism, optic neuritis).

It has already brought a product to market in its software suite that powers smart glasses to be used as eyes for blind people. Specifically, SightPlus is designed to convert visual information into audio cues and vastly magnify visual perspective. The software gives access to printed text, assists the wearer to find a seat on a bus or train, allows them to shop confidently with recognised banknotes, and more – including integration with other smartphone apps for messaging.

Cardiology: Vivasure

Vivasure is based in the heart of Europe’s largest med-tech hub in Galway, Ireland. It makes polymer implants and delivery systems – primarily focused on minimally invasive vessel closure in cardiology, interventional radiology and vascular surgery.

Established in 2009, Vivasure operates a fully-integrated, ISO 13485 certified, R&D and manufacturing facility. In 2016, its first European product – a vascular closure device – attracted investors to back it to the value of over €16 million.

Its patented PerQseal technology promises many further uses, but its lead product is the world’s first fully absorbable, patch-based large-bore percutaneous closure device. This easy-to-use device enables closure of large arteriotomies in transcatheter procedures.

“Closing the artery has been a concern since we started using transcatheter techniques for valve implantation,” says Prof. Horst Sievert, of the Cardiovascular Centre in Frankfurt, Germany. “The PerQseal device is a very innovative solution for closing large holes, and we are enthusiastic to make it part of our armamentarium.”

Similarly, Dr. Saib Khogali of the Heart & Lung Centre in New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton, England, commented that: ‘I find the device intuitive and well controlled, which helped me quickly learn how to use the technology safely and successfully. I believe the PerQseal has the potential to be an important large-hole closure device in many TAVR and EVAR patients.”

Imaging and diagnostics: Incereb

Another Irish start-up, this time based in Dublin, has developed a range of paediatric, neonatal and foetal sensors for EEG monitoring that can be applied in minutes, with minimal training.

Incereb has found an innovative solution to attaching EEGs to a baby’s head to determine brain function. At the moment this is a process that takes a lot of time and requires a trained member of staff to oversee the procedure as the process can cause discomfort for the baby.

Founder Jim Roche explains that ‘having worked in neurophysiology for almost 20 years, with almost eight years in paediatrics and neonatal ICU, it was obvious that many NICU devices were simply adult devices scaled down for use on tiny babies. Incereb is the first EEG device of its type to be designed specifically for use on neonates in the NICU. It’s faster to apply, accurate, kinder to the baby, and makes EEG brain monitoring in the NICU available 24/7/365.”

The Incereb design has already gained a strong foothold in America, with FDA approval, and is seeing increasing uptake in the South American market.

The way the device makes neonatal brain monitoring made easy, quick and accurate through its non-invasive application is that it radically simplifies the electrode application into an innovative single electrode array.

This allows nursing staff with minimal training to align the central reference lead to the baby’s scalp, and confidently know that all other electrodes will be symmetrically placed.

Additional services offered now include EEG solutions with real-time support for pharmaceutical, therapeutic device and other research trials. This has already seen ‘Lifelines Neuro Research Services’ to become the global leader in cloud-based EEG for clinical trials requiring brain monitoring. Its solution allows clinical researchers to gain real-time access to data from anywhere in the world. This can significantly reduce turnaround times for video EEG recording and review, helping companies reduce the time-to-market for critical drugs.

General med-tech: Coroflo

Coroflo is a start-up that crosses the boundary between med-tech and consumer devices. It is also a universally-applicable device that was born from a very personal problem.

Here’s Dr. Helen Barry, Co-founder and ​Chief Research Officer at Coroflo:

‘I knew I wanted to give breastfeeding a go but when my son was born he was tiny. The only way to check [his weight] was week to week weigh-in and pre- and post-feed weight checks.

Waiting for results was extremely stressful for me and it was immediately clear that pre- and post-feed weights varied wildly with little accuracy.

My husband Jamie and I searched the market, but no product existed to tell me how much breastmilk my son was getting. And I needed immediate and accurate information!

Jamie coincidentally had worked on flow monitoring in another sector; he had an idea of a ground-breaking technology that could be the answer.’

Although the inspiration was personal – the need was much wider.

In the UK more than 75% of women who start breastfeeding have stopped by six weeks – and by six months only 1% exclusively breastfeed. These sorts of figures are far from unique to the UK.

Even though it has been widely publicised that breastfeeding offers nutritional, immune system, developmental, psychological, social, economic and environmental benefits, many abandon the practice very early on in their child’s life.

The number one reason identified for premature weaning is fear of low supply – given by ​60% of women as the main reason for stopping breastfeeding.

Coroflo has developed a breastfeeding shield and monitor, the Coro, which can accurately measure exactly how much breast milk a baby is consuming. It is the first breastfeeding monitor in the world that can give mothers accurate, precise, and real-time data about milk supply.

The patented sensor is non-invasive, easy to use, comfortable and tiny.  There is no need for wires or chargers: the unit is completely self-contained. It connects via an app to your phone to monitor feed volumes and store the data. Using cloud-based analytics you can see how your feeds have varied over time and how they compare with other babies of a similar age.

Coroflo has already received Richard Branson’s seal of approval and raised €900,000 in seed funding at a €4 million valuation. It has recently been among the winners the 2019 Google Adopt a Start-up programme and received European Innovation Council funding.

Med-tech and consumer tech: cross fertilisation

As can be seen in many of the start-ups we have highlighted there is a fluidity between tech innovation in consumer devices and those in med-tech.

Sometimes the waters of change flow one way, and at other times the flow is reversed.

A recent Deloitte report suggests that relationships between consumer and med-tech companies, may increasingly flourish. Partnerships between the two sectors could help successful medical OEMs ensure that data collected from the hardware is enriched by data collected from consumer devices.

According to this authoritative report:

‘What could separate med-tech companies apart from each other will be their ability to harness data gathered by their devices and use it to improve well-being, anticipate health issues, and help patients change the day-to-day behaviours that affect their health. Access to consumer-generated data (non-health data that leads to health insights) … can give some technology companies an advantage over established med-tech companies.’

We believe that this cross-fertilisation will develop – and to some extent already has developed – beyond data.

Innovations in medical devices will find uses in new consumer products and vice versa.

And we can expect start-ups, working alongside agile EMS partners, to be at the forefront of grasping these opportunities.

Capturing our attention: the TV series that has us all debating CCTV

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Security surveillance devices

John Johnston, NPI Director, Chemigraphic

After the 8th October 2019, Tuesdays will never be the same again for many people. Not until the inevitable (surely?) series 2 of The Capture arrives on our screens.

The tense, unpredictable BBC thriller has had millions of us on the edge of our seats for almost six weeks now and is set to conclude in what will surely be a dramatic and maybe even frustrating finale.

The reason so many of us have been (ahem) ‘captured’ by the series is how creepily close it is to events happening in our own lives, as we live in the ‘post-truth’ era of fake news and doctored evidence. The premise that once concrete evidence such as video footage and CCTV ‘captures’ can indeed be flawed and even corrupted, seemingly live, is at once terrifying and yet completely plausible.

So what does this mean for the manufacture and development of modern surveillance systems?

Will programmes such as this fuel an already burning fire in us about the validity and even the morality of such technology?

An issue of trust

The short answer is yes and no.

With every technology developed and deployed in our everyday lives, there is always the potential for it to become compromised and abused at some point. From telecoms to mobile phones to written communications, every form of data capture and transmission is sadly open to interpretation, misunderstanding and tampering – it’s a fact of life. The key is to understand and accept the possibilities of flaws and to have a plan in place to identify, uncover and prevent them.

Emerging trends in surveillance

Surveillance and security is now home to a host of new technologies and methods which are opening up possibilities and increasing the accuracy of how we view, record and transmit sensitive information. AI, the IoT and Big Data are all transforming surveillance from being passive recording devices into live, intelligent systems which can make decisions and adapt to situations as they occur.

Devices already on the market act as Google for CCTV. They are instantly searchable and capable of recognising hundreds of thousands of natural language queries, eradicating the need for somebody to physically sit and review hours of footage.

And face recognition looms very close on the horizon, further enhancing the specificity of surveillance footage searches. As we’ve seen in The Capture, this is still very much a point of ethical discussion and tampering with such evidence isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

The real meaning of data ‘intelligence’

Increasingly, it’s not just about surveillance devices but connected intelligence.

The defence sector is discovering how the ability to analyse Big Data will make it more efficient and more effective. And during live combat the ability to assess, assimilate and act on the insights big data can provide can save lives.

Sensors for telemetry (the automatic measurement and wireless transmission of data from remote sources), drones and other military and airborne surveillance and connected surveillance tools can help the military generate vast amounts of data. If this can be intelligently and automatically linked it will play a highly significant role in improving how and where people and assets are deployed.  In modern combat and counter-terrorism, data analytics is now emerging as one of the defence industry’s most effective weapons.

As specialist sensor devices become smaller, higher resolution and less expensive, surveillance equipment is becoming increasingly more sophisticated. Merging multiple measurable inputs such as video, audio, vibration, ultrasonics and lidar (laser surveying) means that data collection and analysis is now possible to a much greater degree of accuracy and under a wide range of conditions and circumstances.

And it’s not just the data capture that is intelligent, the analysis and processing aspect is also now extremely advanced. New techniques mean that vast amounts of data can be filtered to identify and isolate one tiny occurrence which could be crucial when looking for vital evidence. Millions of people will pass through an international airport in a day, so why is that one passenger or package worthy of attention? This emerging technology can help to make that distinction.

With progress comes responsibility

As always, we have a responsibility with this technology to treat it with the utmost respect and use it for good. Unfortunately, there will be those who flout this responsibility, as our current Tuesday night TV fare continues to remind us, but the balance has to be achieved. So much good can be done with this technology: so many plots uncovered, so many lives saved, that we have to believe in the power of good instead of being sucked into paranoia about the possibility of the bad.

One thing is for certain though. The Capture has got us talking. Let’s see where the discussion will take us.

Despite Brexit, the UK is the best place in the world to conduct business

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Global business

Chris Wootton, CEO, Chemigraphic

As the Brexit debate rumbles on and businesses are no closer to understanding exactly what kind of deal, no deal or situation they may face in the coming months, anxiety and frustration are inevitably on the rise amongst UK industry.

However, this is far from the first time British industry has been tested and, as in any similar time of uncertainty, the best way to progress is by finding the positives, holding our heads up high and weathering the storm.

Ideally placed for business

The UK is in the enviable position of being the best place to do business, globally. That may seem a bold and flawed statement in the current circumstances, but logistically and practically, it is true. Our location and our position within the global working day is ideal: we can talk to China in the morning, Europe during the day and the USA in the afternoon. This central position means that not only can we be fully aware of what’s going on in different locations, but it also makes us an attractive business proposition to others, serving as an anchor point for global deals and operations.

So far, but yet so near

The key to success when dealing with global business challenges is actually to forget about location. If we open up a new location in China, Europe, or the USA, that’s great for the customers and partners we have in those regions. It gives us access to regional price structures and component supplies, and eases transport issues and accessibility.

Yet, in terms of running those operations, distance means, or should mean, nothing, bearing in mind the way in which modern global communication platforms work. The new office or location may physically be in another continent, but logistically, it could just as well be next door. We have to organise processes, shipping and staffing, but the distance we need to cover in those operations doesn’t make a difference: it has to be done whatever the location.

It’s undeniable that Brexit and other global factors will challenge us as a nation and as businesses, but in terms of how we manage the day to day, it has to be business as usual. We have to know our worth as a global business territory and draw on our strengths in trade, quality and manufacturing. The logistics may present us with different dilemmas in the coming months, but we have the tools to tackle those head on.

We don’t have any other choice.

EMS in the 2020s: the changing face of outsourced electronics manufacturing

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Electronic circuit board

The future has already happened.

Or, at least the seeds of future change have already been sown.

They’ve been planted by an electronic manufacturing environment where a changing global landscape, shifting customer demands and technological advances are already remoulding the role, processes and capabilities of EMS providers.

As a new decade dawns in 2020, many EMS providers have already sprung from their starting blocks as they race toward the potential rewards of ‘big data’, the benefits of automation, the connectivity efficiencies of Industry 4.0 and other ways to make manufacturing and the supply chain ‘smart’.

Here’s what we think will define the next ten years for electronic manufacturing – and radically alter the ways that EMS partners can make an impact for their customers.

A quick snapshot of electronic manufacturing on the brink of a new decade

The global electronics contract manufacturing and design services market is growing at a very healthy rate.

  • In 2018 it was valued at $391 billion
  • It is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 7.9% from 2019 to 2025

At a time when OEMs look to gain agility and responsiveness by avoiding the need to maintain large-scale industrial operations, this growth is being driven by quality EMS providers providing the following.

  • Economies of scale in services
  • Industrial design expertise
  • Specialist supply chain management
  • Reduced time-to-volume and reduced time-to-market production
  • Investment in the latest (connected) technology

Added to this is a whole range of value-added services, such as design, engineering, warranties, repairs and returns handling. These services allow for vendor consolidation- managing vast networks of disparate suppliers is neither effective, efficient nor sustainable.

In terms of the sectors that will drive this EMS growth, it’s worth first considering the current state of play:

global-electronic-contract-manufacturing-design-services-market

Source

The dominance of IT & Telecom is largely the result of the proliferation of tablets and smartphones – but growth is not expected from this quarter (or, more accurately, nearly half).

Key growth areas expected to steal market share include:

  • Medical (wearables, tomography scanner assemblies, blood analysers, ultrasound imaging systems and blood glucose meters)
  • Automotive (hybrid and electric vehicles)
  • Aerospace and defence – sectors also harnessing new technology to create possibilities

Let’s just quickly review medical.

New technology is opening out a brave new world of devices, such as medical wearables and even invisible hardware. Add to this the trend for patients to be more in control of their care and it’s clear why we are seeing an increased demand for advances in this field.

As the manufacture of these devices calls for sophisticated technology and strict regulatory compliance, outsourcing manufacturing enables OEMs to accelerate R&D and reduce the cost of devices in order to gain competitive advantage.

But it’s not just about manufacturing. It’s about design and a whole lot more. OEMs are increasingly using EMS providers to develop and manufacture medical wearables that require expertise in:

  • Design
  • Advanced battery technology
  • Connectivity
  • Wireless technology
  • Flexibility and comfort for users
  • Personalisation
  • Hygiene
  • Safety
  • Aesthetics
  • Testing and documentation for compliance

Related to this is a predicted (and significant) shift from the EMS sector being characterised by manufacturing – currently 40% of its revenue – to the rise of design and engineering services as OEMs are inclined to focus increasingly on marketing and sales, rather than R&D, prototyping, design and NPI.

Four electronic manufacturing trends to look out for over the next decade

As we said the future is already here, but there are certainly more developments to come. Let’s explore what some of these may be.

  1. Investment in technology and Industry 4.0 will be winning factors

Without a doubt, the willingness to invest in new manufacturing technologies will determine which UK EMS providers win new clients. But, there’s more to this than just new tech.

Increasingly Industry 4.0 and even Industry 5.0 will offer competitive advantages to those who add advances in communication and connectivity to their tech.

Digitisation allows EMS providers to respond more effectively and efficiently to customer needs because it adds the capabilities of automation and connected data to the manufacturing processes.

In the 2020s quality EMS partners will widely adopt automated equipment and use smart technologies to provide greater productivity, more efficient use of resources, faster time to ramp and improved quality control.

  1. Supply chain management will remain critical

Much will change in the next few years, but some things will stay the same.

Take the components shortage that has affected the supply to the UK of semiconductor and passive components. The instigation of product allocation and product obsolescence are still going to be major factors that push OEMs to rely on the supply chain knowledge and expertise of EMS partners.

  1. Agile, additive and personalised 

The consumer market has already embraced personalised goods – and the industrial electronics sector will soon follow.

This means that OEMs will increasingly demand different material finishes, branding options, software configurations, add-ons, plug-ins, ancillary items and language options.

And they will expect them made to order and delivered the next day.

Connected, data-driven tech will be crucial to meet this demand, but so too will an agile supply chain. Orders triggered by client demand will be automatically sent to suppliers and delivered within the hour. In addition, the EMS provider will no longer process, re-pack and re-locate large orders of stock. Instead the supply chain partners will take responsibility for this service and deliver smaller batches more frequently.

We expect (and will need) just-in-time supply.  Additive manufacturing will also aid such personalisation. It will be deployed throughout the assembly and test processes to produce jigs on-demand, along with any bespoke tools needed.

  1. Smart tracking

Data and dashboard technology will not only connect the production process but also procurement operations. In fact, it will connect everything from prototyping to the entire life cycle of a product.

  • Smart tracking and barcoding will allow deliveries to be monitored in real-time
  • Any unexpected delays will allow customers to be instantly informed and operation teams to redeploy resources
  • On arrival orders will be scanned and booked in for (automated) inspection
  • Printed circuit boards (PCB) will carry accessible information such as their part number and revision level
  • They will also carry all the build information required for their assembly
  • As the PCB moves to each production stage, operators can access the relevant set of instructions they need
  • And, when the job is finished, the PCB will carry within it every detail of the manufacturing steps, operators responsible and component traceability records. These can be stored in the cloud, accessible to anyone with permission should the information be needed later on   

The future is already happening at Chemigraphic

It’s going to be an exciting decade.

And at Chemigraphic we already have much of what is to come in place – and firm plans to implement the rest.

If you are looking for an electronic manufacturer who can handle design, NPI, impeccable supply chain management and connected tech, why not give us a call.

We think you’ll like our forward thinking. Get in touch on 01293 543517 to find out more and book a site visit.

Less haste, more speed: the fine balance of delivering on time in medical electronics

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Medical electronic manufacturing

Barney Sheppard, Sales Operations Manager, Chemigraphic

Electronic medical devices are big business

And they are set to get bigger. Recent estimates suggest that the global medical electronics market will reach $4.41 billion USD by 2022, achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.4%.

Devices which monitor various measurements and activity will likely grow at the highest rate, including:

  • Wearables
  • eskins
  • Blood glucose meters
  • Tomography (imaging) scanner assemblies
  • Blood analysers
  • Mobile monitoring devices
  • And apps for fitness and health

These new devices are smaller, smarter, safer… and strictly regulated.

In many senses the race to reach the market with the latest innovative technology is very much on – and the traditional big players are being challenged by a rash of agile, lean start-ups.

But in this sector – arguably more than in any other – the ability to deliver on time is seriously constrained by the necessity to deliver to spec.

Quality EMS partners are perfectly positioned to help

It looks likely that the past decade’s top earners for the EMS sector – tablets and smartphones – will lose market share to medical devices, which will be a major driver of growth.

Start-ups rely on the knowledge, design, manufacturing and understanding of the meticulous documentation required to achieve approval that EMS providers offer to get their concepts to ramp.

Meanwhile, many of the bigger players are increasingly relying on the investment in advanced technology, design for manufacture expertise and strict regulatory compliance that EMS outsourcing enables. Through this, OEMs can accelerate R&D, reduce the cost of devices and help them gain competitive advantage.

What’s driving the growth of electronic medical devices?

A cluster of factors is causing an ideal alignment of the stars for medical device growth.

These include:

  • New technology
  • New materials
  • New battery (or alternative sources of power) capabilities
  • Additive manufacture for R&D
  • The ability to produce smaller and smaller devices
  • The capabilities of the Internet of Things to share data and allow remote control and machine learning

And all of this has coincided with moves in the medical sector to:

  • Involve patients more actively in their own care
  • Be more transparent in sharing patient data
  • Move treatment from institutions to become more community or home-based
  • The need to find solutions that can reduce long-term costs and administrative burden
  • A greater focus on patient comfort and convenience

What’s threatening electronic medical device success?

At exactly the same time that the horizons broaden and opportunity knocks loudly on the medical electronic device sector’s door, there are a whole new range of obstacles that must be hurdled to enter the market.

The race may be on but in very few fields are there stricter rules and regulations to pass the finish line than in the medical sector.

Risk control has been placed squarely at the heart of a device manufacture by the European Medical Devices Regulations (MDR). This not only calls for more detailed technical documentation and auditing, but it also requires stricter demands for clinical evaluation and post-market clinical follow-up, with better traceability of devices throughout the supply chain.

The updated ISO13485 similarly focusses on better risk control, better supplier management and more detailed proof of design and development.

The complex rules of CE marking will also need to be followed if you are selling in Europe. There are a number of hoops to jump through to obtain this, including:

  • Identifying applicable directive(s) and standards and checking the essential requirements for your product
  • Ascertaining if your product needs a third-party conformity assessment
  • Testing the product and checking its conformity if third-party assessment is not required
  • Creating and maintaining technical documentation
  • Affixing the CE mark to the product according to specific rules

How EMS partners can help

Partnering with the right outsourced manufacturer can help OEMS in a multitude of ways.

We understand the regulations and can support you from day one with key steps such as document creation and core technologies. It is those who partner with a team that is fully up to speed with regulatory processes who are the ones who will be able to develop these devices most efficiently and effectively.

While time to market is critical – and our NPI experience and testing capabilities help move things along the line at a great pace – in the medical sector it can be gaining approval that causes the biggest delays. There’s no point trying to rush a product to market as fast as possible if the steps you skip, or corners you cut, mean you do not comply with all the necessary standards and regulations.

We believe that ultimately, the key to medical device quality assurance is having a correct quality plan in place and documenting everything you need. For this, you must understand from the get-go exactly what proof you need to demonstrate you have followed your quality management system activities as you planned.

But we’re not just here to keep records for you!

In the past OEMs used EMS partners because their manufacturing technology and experience helped drive down costs. But, how times have changed.

Now, EMS partners can enter the process early on in order to help you optimise your product, at every stage from concept to ramp. With specialist design teams, NPI divisions, research and engineering functions, we help our customers to expedite time to market and ensure that they don’t need to implement costly changes later down the line, due to manufacturing or sourcing issues.

Finally, it’s no longer all about electronics.

As the opportunities offered by the IOT take centre stage new skills are called for. While medical device companies understand medicine and science, they may not have the same depth of knowledge in the networking, wireless, computer, and data communication technologies that are being incorporated into leading-edge medical electronics.

As a quick example, here are just some of the areas we support our medical OEMs with:

  • Advanced battery technology
  • Connectivity and wireless technology
  • Flexibility and comfort for user
  • Hygiene
  • Safety
  • Aesthetics
  • Personalised design

Tortoise and the hare

The folk tale about the tortoise and hare race may seem a strange analogy to make here. But, like all cautionary tales it contains a grain of truth. Racing to ramp may seem like the best option in a competitive and demanding marketplace. But taking time and partnering with the best experts to ensure all processes are in place and operating smoothly is always worth the additional time and effort.

We can offer you quick, cost-effective manufacturing processes and a robust, traceable supply chain.

However, what’s equally if not more important, is that we can combine this with design, R&D and a thorough understanding of those regulations that always seem to trip the hare up, just as it thinks it’s going to be the first to market.

Testing times – electronic product launch fails and how to avoid them

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A desperate bid to save the smartphone: Samsung Galaxy Fold

The smartphone may be reaching the end of the road.

Speaking after the less-than-successful pre-launch of the Samsung Fold, CEO DJ Koh predicted that:

‘Once 5G and the internet of things are available together, we must think rather than smartphones, we must think smart devices. Smartphones may decline but new devices will emerge.’

Elaborating on this, Head of Design Kang Yun-Je, added:

‘Smartphone design has hit a limit, that’s why we designed a folding phone. But we’re also focusing on other devices that are beginning to make a wider impact on the market, like smart earphones and smart watches. In five years or so, people will not even realise they are wearing screens. It will be seamless.’

 

Source

And yet, the foldable phone was supposed to be the next big thing that would help Samsung breathe fresh life into the design and manufacturing initiatives that had flatlined to minor updates of cameras and tweaks to screen resolutions.

But it wasn’t alone in developing a phone that folds: Huawei and Xiaomi had announced their own plans.

The pressure was on, and Samsung’s rush to market may have won them the race but it left them with egg on their face.

Screen malfunctions caused the Galaxy Fold sent to reviewers to cause the company to fold the planned launch just days before it’s official launch date.

Samsung CEO DJ Koh admitted:

‘It was embarrassing. I pushed it through before it was ready, I do admit I missed something, but we are in the process of recovery. At the moment, more than 2,000 devices are being tested right now in all aspects. We defined all the issues. Some issues we didn’t even think about, but thanks to our Samsung Fold reviewers, mass volume testing is ongoing.’

Or, to paraphrase, we’re shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Testing is not ongoing after a launch. It takes place at the earliest stage of a product’s development and throughout its manufacturing. When your product hits the ramp you need 100% confidence in it.

We’ll come back to this, but first a few more product launches that have failed disastrously due to lack of testing.  

Other epic fails caused by lack of testing

Samsung Note 7

In actual fact, the Galaxy Fold fiasco was nowhere near as damaging to Samsung as the issues that emerged with its Note 7 in 2016.

Having been launched onto the market reports started filtering – and then flooding – through of batteries spontaneously catching fire and exploding or overheating and burning users.

The brand issued a voluntary recall of the devices, during which they recalled 2.5 million units, according to Time magazine.

To make matters worse, Samsung replaced the Notes with new devices, but the problem persisted. It is estimated that it lost $14.3 billion in investments, but the cost to its reputation and brand are incalculable.

What went wrong?

The problem proved to be improper product development and QC testing:  One mistake was committed by Samsung themselves, in regards to battery size. The other was incorrect welding of batteries by a third-party manufacturer.

Fitbit Charge HR & Surge

After the Pulse, Fitbit continued to experience issues with their fitness monitors. The Fitbit Pulse was recalled because it caused some users to have allergic reactions. After that, the Fitbit Charge HR and Fitbit Surge fitness monitors were met with a class-action lawsuit in 2016 from users claiming the devices provided false reports.

 

Source

What went wrong?

Here the issue lies both with selection and testing of materials and rigorous testing that the device performs under all conditions.

Hoverboards

Another product badly burned by lack of testing was the Hoverboard, the self-balancing scooters that created a craze 2015. But it wasn’t long before they were creating a blaze, many of the fires started while the boards were charging but others occurred while users where riding them.

By July 2016, the U.S. CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) had recalled half a million units in the U.S. It was determined that the root cause of the fires was overheating lithium-ion batteries.

What went wrong?

Top retailers like Amazon and Target had ensured that each individual component passed a safety test – but issues with the whole product are often more than the separate sum of its parts.

Hoverboard was at pains to point out that there were no safety guidelines for the manufacture of its products. But, if you’re manufacturing something with no safety guidelines, you need to personally take it upon yourself to run thorough tests.

Why design-test-launch is not enough

OEMs need early engagement with EMS partners to ensure that testing strategies are implemented at every stage of a product’s development, from design to supply chain to each phase of manufacturing.

And we specifically call them strategies because there isn’t a fixed set of tests to run – you must let the product’s development, its profile of risks and the characteristics of each component guide you.

This is why OEMs need an EMS partner with a variety of testing capabilities and a track record of ensuring integrity in products far beyond the ramp and into the product’s full life-cycle in market.

Any test process that relies solely on design engineers testing for design validation is inadequate.

It is not operationally efficient and may not even be appropriate, within a manufacturing environment.

For manufacture the key objectives for testing are:

  • To ensure the test captures the actual profile of risks likely at a given stage, such as construction and assembly, components and workmanship, rather than design.
    (Remember the Note 7’s welding?)
  • The ideal manufacturing test is a quick go/no-go, pass/fail test that any operator can perform. It shouldn’t require any complex software setup or interpretation of results.
  • Single tests are not enough. Investing in an expensive fully automated, high-speed test solution is possible, but if a number of more modest setups can be run concurrently, then the overall throughput and cost-per-test can be better.

At Chemigraphic, we offer comprehensive quality control programmes and test services that ensure you have complete confidence in your products before they go to ramp.

Our testing capabilities include:

  • Inline automatic optical inspection on all SMD lines
  • Endoscope for defect analysis
  • ‘Bed of Nails’ ATE for MDA, or where appropriate, combinatorial testing
  • JTAG – boundary scan
  • Device programming
  • Numerous bespoke functional test rigs
  • On-board programming of electronically programmable devices (EPDs)
  • Safety testing
  • X-ray technology on site

And our services don’t end when your product goes to ramp – we test for its full lifecycle after launch.

To find out more about how early engagement with our team can identify faults early and ensure your launch runs smoothly, call us on 01293 543517

Keeping a close watch: key considerations when designing and manufacturing surveillance and security devices

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Drones surveillance devices

In 1880 the first movie cameras were developed by Thomas Edison and William Dickson. The seed for video surveillance had been planted.

During World War 2, miniature portable cameras appeared, making covert surveillance possible for the military.

Shortly after, Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) was first used in Germany to monitor the launch of V2 rockets.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

But the history of surveillance is far from over.

Surveillance today is much more than just CCTV. It now includes things like police body-worn cameras and the use of drones.

New developments are appearing on the scene that have the capabilities to take the use of surveillance by the military or for security to a whole new level.

The future of surveillance

Robotics

The UK Ministry of Defence recently pledged funding of £66m to fast-track the development of military robotics for use on the battlefield. The funding will be used to develop technology such as small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for greater situational awareness, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

A senior military figure, Colonel Peter J Rowell, commented that ‘robotic and autonomous systems make our troops more effective; seeing more, understanding more, covering a greater area and being more lethal.’

Small UAVs can provide aerial surveillance and reconnaissance at a smaller cost and lower risk to human life than manned options, such as helicopters. However, it’s not just their size that makes them more discreet: helicopters flying at 500ft can make noise of around 80-90dB.

A drone barely buzzes.

3D printing and additive manufacture

The potential for additive manufacturing is continually being assessed by manufacturers, defence organisations and military end-users. This potential lies in decreased costs, pace of development, and a strengthened supply chain resilience.

Of particular interest, in relation to surveillance, is the ability to produce components and parts for unique situations or locations.

But problems still remain, as one study noted:

‘Even the most well-known and developed of the current [additive manufacturing] technologies are not suitable for applications requiring very precise and fixed tolerances.’

UVs

Unmanned vehicles and the surveillance opportunities they open up require a manufacture who understands exactly how to create electronics that can withstand hazardous – or, at best – challenging environments.

  • UGVs must handle the knocks and bumps of rugged terrain
  • USVs must withstand intense atmospheric pressure and the corrosive force of salt water
  • Surf zone mine sweepers face the risk of explosions and the pounding force of the waves as they prepare the way for troops
  • UAVS must be able to withstand the extreme wind force and changes in pressure

To design UVs and surveillance equipment that can withstand such situations calls for an in-depth understanding of suitable casings and the ability to pack a lot of functions into a very small space.

System integration is vital for designing efficient, effective and robust surveillance UVs. It takes a specialist EMS partner to skilfully design and integrate custom PCB assembly with sub-assemblies and modules, enclosure design, fabrication, cabling and wiring.

And rugged exteriorsand interior casings must protect these incredibly complex and intricate electronics.

Artificial intelligence, the IoT and Big Data

AI, the IoT and Big Data are joining forces to transform surveillance from being passive recording devices into having digital brains and communication connections to match their eyes.

Surveillance devices can increasingly analyse and understand what they record, and respond accordingly.

Devices already on the market act as Google for CCTV. They are instantly searchable and capable of  recognising hundreds of thousands of natural language queries, to search without having somebody physically sit and review hours of footage.

And face recognition looms very close on the horizon, further enhancing the specificity of surveillance footage searches.

What’s more, AI is being developed that will recognise likely situations, providing pre-emptive notifications of a possible fight, for instance.

In its survey of the future of surveillance, the European Commission identified that:

‘Surveillance will increasingly be deployed for pre-emptive purposes by governments and companies. This is driven by an increase in computing capacity, miniaturisation of devices and improvements in performance, together with increased public use of digital media.’

But it’s not all about cameras: remotely readable RFID tags are increasingly attached to consumer goods and access control cards. This is just one example of how the IoT can make some aspects of the physical world as trackable as internet activity.

In the near future we will see these sensors and tags become ubiquitous, dramatically smaller and much more capable through the application of nanotechnology.

Increasingly, it’s not just about surveillance devices but connected intelligence. The defence sector is discovering how the ability to analyse Big Data will make it more efficient and more effective. And during live combat the ability to assess, assimilate and act on the insights big data can provide can save lives.

Sensors for telemetry (the automatic measurement and wireless transmission of data from remote sources), drones and other military and airborne surveillance and connected surveillance tools can help the military generate vast amounts of data. If this can be intelligently and automatically linked it will play a massively important role in improving how and where people and assets are deployed.  In modern combat and counter-terrorism, data analytics is now emerging as one of the defence industry’s most effective weapons.   

As specialist sensor devices become smaller, higher resolution and less expensive, surveillance equipment is becoming increasingly more sophisticated. Merging multiple measureable inputs such as video, audio, temperature, accelerometers, vibration, ultrasonics and lidar (laser surveying) allows incredibly accurate situational measurement in a range of circumstances and conditions.

Then overlaying this into interactive infrastructure mapping and database resources allows a high degree of context and spatial analytics, enabling vast amounts of data to be filtered to identify that one critical circumstance of interest. Millions of people will pass through an international airport in a day, so why is that one passenger or package worthy of attention? These devices can help to make that distinction.

Why Chemigraphic?

We specialise in the sophisticated assembly of surveillance products. Through early engagement and design for manufacture services we can support your engineering teams to generate and validate designs equipped for the latest, emerging technology.

To discuss your requirements, call our team today on 01293 543517.

Going green: why sustainability must play an increasing role in electronic manufacturing

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Announcement follows the EMS provider’s £7m investment from PE firm NVM

The high-tech world of electronic manufacturing has changed our daily lives and enhanced the capabilities of sectors such as medical, defence, manufacturing and aerospace.

But peek behind the innovative 21st-century tech devices and it’s still not too hard to find supply chain and manufacturing processes that continue to rely on:

  • Outmoded sources of energy
  • Dangerous mining practices
  • Hazardous chemicals
  • And products that drive consumption of our diminishing resources

Our take on this is simple:

“We conduct business in such a way as to prevent pollution, to minimise as far as is appropriate the adverse impact on the environment of our activities, and to comply with all applicable environmental legislation.”

In this article we want to go beyond this and take a look at the industry as a whole and what we all could do to minimise our impact on the environment. Some of it we are already doing – and have been for years – others are things we’d like to work together as a sector to achieve.

Hazardous materials

The Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) regulations came into force in the UK in 2006, with the aim of restricting the use of certain substances in the manufacture, import and distribution of electrical and electronic equipment.

They were further updated in 2013 to extend their protection to human health and the environment from certain materials used in manufacturing.

Yet, in its Guide to Greener Electronics, Greenpeace found that hazardous substances in devices continue to create toxic waste that endangers recyclers and harms the environment.

Substances identified included:

  • Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) – which release highly toxic dioxins when burnt
  • Phthalates – some of which are classified as hormone disrupters
  • And antimony trioxide and beryllium – both potential human carcinogens

Supply chain ownership

Many of the issues here could be resolved by more thorough supply chain management. Without established and vetted relationships with suppliers it is simply not possible to know what chemicals suppliers are using, especially those chemicals such as degreasers or solvents, which do not end up in the final product.

But the issues surrounding the supply chain go deeper than just this.

Electronics manufacturing involves material and labour from almost every continent. The supply chains for a single electronic device involves hundreds of companies, in a web that must be owned and manages if it is to be working to our standards.

This is not always happening.

Increasing complexity means greater amounts of energy are required to produce each device, with 70 to 80% of the energy footprint of personal electronic devices occurring during the manufacturing phase. The manufacturing of electronics in China and Southeast Asia, where the supply chains for many companies are located remains largely powered by coal, rather than renewable energy sources.

While EMS and OEM head offices may be powered by renewable energy, this is a drop in the ocean compared to the fact that the manufacturing of many products by suppliers is where most of the GHG emissions are being generated, fuelling climate change and degrading local air quality.

Energy is not the only problem that our industry faces. Electronic devices are among the most resource intensive by weight, requiring miners to dig through 30 kilos of rock to obtain the 100 grams of minerals needed for a smartphone. This mining leaves behind toxic wastewater and soil. The cobalt used for batteries is often mined in small-scale, largely unregulated operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This presents both environmental and human rights concerns, as working conditions are poor and children as young as seven are often used.

Recycling and refurbishing

Recyclability for manufacture means two things: incorporating more recycled materials in place of fresh materials, and also designing products to be more easily recycled at the end of their lifecycle.

This is known as a closed-loop production system.

And it’s one where a lot of work is still needed.

Worldwide e-waste volumes have exceeded 65 million metric tons per year in 2017 and only 16% of global e-waste volumes are estimated to be recycled in the formal sector, despite the valuable materials contained within. According to the United Nations, much e-waste ends up at informal recyclers and is handled in ways that damages workers’ health and the environment.

The most sustainable electronic device is the one you already have.

In this sense, the best way we can improve resource efficiency is to:

  • Make more durable products
  • Facilitate simple and accessible repairs
  • Ensure products are upgradable
  • And recycle disused products as efficiently as possible

At present devices that are recycled are usually smelted or shredded.

Yet, there are many components that could be recovered – dismantling is by far the best option for the environment to maximise the amount and variety of materials which can be recovered.

Recycling is also an issue for how our devices are packaged. Using recycled board, recyclable plastics and avoiding Styrofoam packaging is a simple way to reduce our impact on the environment.

Under the WEEE directive consumers can return any electronics product to the point of purchase and then it must be recycled responsibly. Yet it is severely under-publicised and not 100% clear how returned products are being handled.

This is a missed opportunity.

It would be the ideal way to reuse many of the valuable commodities and components contained in discarded electronics. We need a take back system that is as easy to use and accessible to consumers as their latest electronic purchase is.

In addition, devices could be remarketed as still-functional refurbished products, or more effort could be made to make repair manuals and spare parts available for consumers.

Chemigraphic’s commitment to sustainability

There are a number of ways we can help OEMs improve their sustainable manufacturing.

  1. Robust supply chain management
  2. Component selection which use more-sustainable materials- parts manufacturers will respond to market demand
  3. Resource efficiency
  4. Manufacturing systems that handle raw materials efficiently by minimising waste
  5. Continuing to improve the ways we capture value from waste
  6. Reviewing sustainable business models – to constantly improve our energy efficiency

And we’re always open to hear about ways we could all work together for future business in a sustainable world.

Chemigraphic introduces new programme manager function to optimise forecasting

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Laura-Chemigraphic-programme-manager

Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider Chemigraphic has established a brand new ‘programme manager’ function within its sales and planning team. The new position is a direct result of Chemigraphic’s newly implemented ERP system, IFS and will enable the sales and planning team to work more effectively with each of its customers.

Chemigraphic’s Laura Goring has taken up the first of the programme manager positions and will liaise with customers to better understand their requirements, potential barriers to progress and expectations early on in each relationship. This added layer of customer liaison, coupled with data drawn from the ERP system, allows Chemigraphic to create an improved, clear forecast for each customer and each project, in order to manage capacity and activity peaks as far ahead as possible.

Once this information is recorded in IFS, Chemigraphic will be able to optimise the manufacturing and supply chain agreements and strategies, aligning their own forecasts with those of each customer and their respective variables.

Laura, previously a member of Chemigraphic’s purchasing team, has extensive knowledge of the manufacturing and purchasing processes, which places her in a good position to understand and discuss specific requirements and concerns with each customer.

Commenting on her new role, Laura says:

“Different customers have different systems and tools with which they plan and forecast their production and manufacturing schedules, which will inevitably change and differ throughout the year. Understanding the variables for each customer before inputting information into our own systems is incredibly useful for us as a business, but will also provide our customers with considerable benefits and mean that we can work more efficiently to the demands of their business.”

John Johnston, NPI and Sales Director at Chemigraphic, comments:

“Laura is a great example of the incredible talent we have coming up through the business, making an enormous impact on the service we offer our customers and the way we operate. The implementation of IFS allows us to work in a much smarter, more forward-thinking manner and the new programme manager role is a direct result of that new capability.”