1,000mph Record Attempt Its instigator calls it “the ultimate, ultimate engineering challenge”; it’s driver says it will be “an inspiration for every school child”. It will cost £10 million, reach 1000mph and is called Bloodhound SSC (super sonic car). Yesterday (23 October) at the Science Museum Science minister Lord Drayson launched the Bloodhound project - a three-year private venture mission led by Richard Noble OBE to create a land speed record car capable of achieving 1,000mph. It will be driven by Wing Commander Andy Green who set the current record of 763mph (1228kmh) at the controls of ThrustSSC in 1997.

Off-shoring - The Bottom Line

Today the BBC launched a year long project following a 40-foot shipping container as it begins its worldwide journe y from Southampton. The project, called The Box, will follow the container as it transports real goods, from car parts to footwear, in a genuine snapshot of global trade.

80% of goods arriving in Britain do so via container, and for every five full containers received, only one ships out.

Does this mean that the logical approach is for SME's to look east for their manufacturing requirements? Well I hear plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that the trend for off-shoring is actually reversing, especially among smaller OEMs so I spoke to a confident at a well known UK 'out-sourcing' company and asked their opinion.

I was surprised to hear at first hand how challenging and time consuming it is to work with an overseas manufacturer.

* Firstly, you have to find the right contractor, so no order should ever be placed without visiting the prospective production facility.

* Following the order, the contractor will then want their money up front before commencing procurement, which can easily take a week.

* Materials lead-time can then be up to 16 weeks and often may require European style components to be shipped out.

* Manufacturing will then be 2-3 weeks and shipping a further 4 weeks.

So there you have up to 30 weeks before the product begins to generate income from the original investment, and remember to add in a dedicated resource to manage the off-shore supply chain, which can be a full time job.

I was amazed to learn that this outsourcing company only has TWO customers for whom they import electronic assemblies from China. Most of their revenue is from smaller items such as electromechanical and wound components.

I questioned why more companies were not jumping to benefit from the savings that China could presumably offer. However this, I was told, was precisely the problem. Expectations of cost reductions are often not realised because OEMs take a far too simplistic view from the offset and do not realise the high costs associated with the supplier management. They are rarely able to forecast demand accurately for competitive batch sizes and are bewildered when a manufacturer will typically ask a hundred questions before commencing a build, with all the language barriers, cultural differences, time zones and legal systems at play.

There is little peace of mind even after delivery. Locally sourced components such as capacitors can have different characteristics over time compared with branded product, let alone the usual risks of sub-stand materials being used (take a look at the ERAI report on our website for the propensity of Chinese open market parts to be less than perfect).

So OEMs who are looking solely at the lowest cost often overlook other factors that give them the ability to serve customers rapidly with high-quality products.

To me the bottom line is, unless you are producing low cost commodity items, find yourself a good UK contract manufacturer!

Voice to Email - Spinvox

I am recently enjoying a great application from Spinvox which allows me to send myself minutes of meetings or general reminders while I'm out and about.

What Spinvox allows you to do is dial a phone number and you are then prompted to leave a message. This voice message is converted into text and can be either emailed to you, update your blog, or can be sent as a text message and email to your friends.

After testing this I have found that as long as you speak at a normal sort of speed and speak clearly the service works very well.

The email service is free to use. You pay for the cost of dialling the access number but the one I was given is a standard UK national number so included in the free minutes on my mobile call package.

You can find out details on Spinvox here

Stand at Subcon 08

As part of our 25th Anniversary celebrations we showcased a number of designs at this years Subcon 08 at the NEC. We felt it was a busy and exciting show and it drew attention to us from a number of major OEMS. Although it is early days for our range of GPRS telematics boards we were able to demostrate the principles by letting visitors send a text message to turn equipment on and off and then receive a reply with a list of all input and output states, the temperature and the co-ordinates of the stand.

Distributor Shrinking Pains

It is interesting to see how some distributors of components are re-positioning themselves as they struggle to keep all of their franchises satisfied in a shrinking market. Specialist suppliers who have a focussed core of products struggle to market themselves alongside broad line distributors. The big guys get earlier insight into new product development and slap on design registration as soon as they have knowledge of an application. It then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for the smaller distributor as fewer franchises means less market penetration, a decline in revenue and an increase in the burden of keeping sales and technical staff on the road.

This year's decline in manufacturing investment in the UK has seen a spectacular share price fall for components distributor Electrocomponents (RS to you and me). For the first time that I can remember their stock is now less than that of their historical rival Farnell. Over the last 20 years RS has always been around three times larger than Farnell, but now their market capitalisation is almost identical. Both companies are headlining 'massive' discounts on their websites but I sense this is alien to the RS mindset and they have much more work to do. RS may be the M+S of the component world so stick around for butchery or buyouts.

The Ideal Supplier

We, at Cope, consider the following four virtues as very important, which is why Cope Technology could be your Ideal Supplier....

Efficiency:

Influenced not only by pricing but also by technical expertise, reliability, flexibility and quality.

Communication:

Verbal, in person, and via the internet.

Quality:

Products that satisfy your customers' requirements.

Partnerships:

Long term partnerships help reduce costs, optimise quality and encourage new product introductions.