Market and government forces

Citation

Coultard, F. (2005), "Market and government forces", Circuit World, Vol. 31 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/cw.2005.21731caf.001

Market and government forces

Market and government forces

Keywords: Electronics industry, China, Environmental management

“Running a Company on Market Research is like driving whilst looking in the rear view mirror” Anita Roddick – (Body Shop Company) Independent Newspaper, 22 August 1997.

In the UK we have just had, at the time of writing, the pre-budget speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Gordon Brown. Inevitably it provides sweeteners to woo the electorate with an impending election in 2005 but there are underlying worrying aspects to the recently buoyant UK economy. The chancellor's past growth forecast have been remarkably accurate, but now the swell of expert opinion, which includes the Bank of England, thinks that his expectations for the next 2 years are over-optimistic by a long way; this, if true, will lead to the need for the government to raise tax revenues within 2005, probably after the next election. Runaway public spending has aggravated this situation. A more encouraging aspect is that the crude oil price is diving causing Opec to plan a reduction in output to balance this trend.

The China syndrome will increasingly dominate the scene and there is little and no sign or indeed likelihood of this abating. Numerous companies are piling in very large investment and increasing output in PCBs and assembly in that country; an excellent article in the December 2004 edition of Circuitree magazine by Matthew Holzmann, President of Christopher Associates covers this well. Currencies are soaring against the $ and the £ edges close to the $2 mark (December 2004).

Also in this edition Walt Custer reports that the PCB industry in the USA has stalled. This is somewhat reflected here in the UK with the past revival now looking weaker and the market rather flat.

Intellect is developing successfully new attitudes and plans to meet the latest challenges. Intellect's Components and Manufacturing Sector (C&M) has taken on Intellect's Environmental Policy Committee under the wing of Richard Waterhouse, Manager Environmental Services at Intellect. This has merged with the PCIF's previous environmental working group and I am pleased to announce that Dr Martin Goosey has agreed to be chairman of this new Environmental Group. The HSECC which focuses on environmental policy matters and liaises effectively with government, functions alongside this but operates separately. Thus, the PCB industry's environmental interests are assured; the various programmes with grant funding continue and new ones are in planning. In addition the newly formed Electronics Design & Innovation Group (EDIG) which comes under my responsibility has had two meetings so far and is developing nicely. The chairman is Dr Chris McArdle, MD of Innotec UK Ltd. Aims and objectives are being thrashed out and the appeal is to a broad band of interest.

The 2005 CMS programme is planned and involves vigorous activities for fabricators, PCB suppliers, designers, Power Supply Manufacturers Assoiciation (PSMA), environmental interests and also of course for the ICT. Now the ICT has chosen to become more independent, albeit still of course linked to Intellect, it has kept to its healthy programme but more importantly has recently staged a highly successful seminar on digital printing techniques. The event was supported by Circatex and included a plant tour of their facility. Andrew Hall, ICT's Chairman led the day and with over 45 delegates it was a splendid and highly successful event; Bill Wilkie, ICT's new Technical Director was instrumental in initiating and arranging this day.

Two environmental projects are in train, the Tazdis (Towards a Zero Discharge Scheme) which will produce actual functioning plating lines and is in its second year with excellent progression and then the eco3 project which is shortly to be finishing; this latter is aimed at producing a business tool to enable SMEs to cope with the copious environmental legislation that emerges from the EU. This project is funded by the RDA in the West Midlands and provides for SMEs in that area but there are plans to roll this out to other regions. Information about this initiative will be disseminated to the industry.

The DTI's EIGT interim report is due for publication on 13 December 2004 and we await the recommendations for the UK's Electronics Industry with great interest. Also imminently there is to be launched the DTI's new technology programme; Peter Batchelor of the DTI will be giving an update on this at the EDIG's meeting on 9th December.

Intellect's office refurbishment at the Russell Square Offices continues and is due for completion within the first quarter of 2005.

I believe that in principle the prospects are bright for our members because they are attuned to fast efficient service and to providing for the needs of their existing industry customer base. Reacting to customer's requirements has always been our member's forte and even globally that never fails.

Frank CoultardIntellect