New York-based electronics distributor 1-Source Electronic Components (www.1sourcecomponents.com), which also has a warehouse and technology incubator in North Carolina and distribution/inspection facilities in Hong Kong and mainland China, is teaming with inspection company ChipChecker Ltd. (www.chipchecker.com) to provide wholesale buyers, distributors and brokers with a suite of anti-counterfeit material management services.
The L-15 Inspection and Third-Party Testing Services include quality inspection of products and suppliers in Hong Kong, mainland China, and North America. They are being led by ChipChecker operating director Jon Mayfield, a former executive with ASC and Racal-Datacom.
ChipChecker was established three years ago to give component buyers “a viable means of fighting component fraud.” Headquartered in Hong Kong, ChipChecker performs physical site visitations of vendor facilities in addition to product inspection. The company also provides electronics parts management services, including third-party testing, project management, product sourcing, procurement, logistics, and fulfillment services.
“1-Source and ChipChecker make sure that product from Asia or North America comes from suppliers that have a physical presence, a warehouse, and proper handling practices,” explains Mayfield.
One of the main services offered is investigation of the supply and suppliers within the Asian marketplace, or what Mayfield calls the “brick-and-mortar” test. He says it is imperative that manufacturers know that the brokers with whom they work are more than online fronts.
“Off the top of my head, I can think of at least $50,000 that our company alone has lost just on bad parts we received from disreputable companies,” notes Robert Lodato, executive vice president at 1-Source. “And that doesn’t include shipping parts back and forth to Asia that we were actually able to return, and sales and customers we lost due to the delay these issues created.”
Lodato recalls a time when 1-Source received a shipment of chips supposedly made by Philips. “They looked beautiful, as did the packaging,” says Lodato. “It all looked original, but on further inspection, they turned out to be counterfeits with non-functioning cores. And there was nothing we could do to get our money back—which was a considerable amount.”
From that experience, Lodato says, 1-Source learned and developed ways to protect itself.
“Today, it’s reached the point at which many distributors and especially manufacturers are afraid to buy parts from China,” adds Lodato. “As a result, business with China has declined sharply, and honest businesses on both sides of the Pacific have been hurt. Yet, there is plenty of good product there, if only people knew how to ensure they were getting it rather than the junk.”
ChipChecker is working with large customers on a contractual basis to provide services targeted at improving the hard-to-find, long-lead-time product, and ensuring the integrity of supply and supplier.
“We now have the ability to offer with confidence vetted, inspected and tested supply out of the Asian marketplace to all of our customers,” adds Bruce MacArthur, chief operating officer with 1-Source. “Our 15-step inspection and functional testing services will do much to gain the confidence of manufacturers around the globe and bring a real quest for quality out of this region to the global distribution chain.”
Details of the L-15 inspection program can be found at either company’s website.
