EMS@C-LEVEL
As Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company and SCOOP writer, Philip Stoten, continues to talk to EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) executives he learns more about their individual and collective experiences and their expectations for their own businesses and for the entire electronic manufacturing industry.
EMS@C-LEVEL
Electronica 24: Cybord's New RTI or Real-Time Interceptor Future of Supply Chain Traceability
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Join us as we explore the future of component traceability with Oshri Cohen, CEO of Cybord, who unveils their groundbreaking Real-Time Interceptor (RTI) at Electronica 2024. This AI-driven tool promises to transform electronic component inspection and traceability, delivering real-time quality checks that dramatically reduce waste and inefficiencies. OEMs are eager to minimize brand damage and warranty headaches, while EMS companies are drawn to the enhanced efficiency and profitability. Oshri also shares how Cybord's versatile platform addresses critical needs like traceability, cybersecurity, and compliance with country-of-origin regulations, illustrating its wide-ranging impact in a world of greater restrictions and tariffs.
We also tackle the often chaotic world of supply chain management. Between missing components and surplus inventory, surprises seem to lurk at every turn. Our discussion highlights the crucial need for innovative tools and strategies that help businesses adapt and thrive amidst these fluctuations. With a focus on harnessing large databases to develop value-adding solutions, we advocate for data-driven strategies as a means to improving supply chain efficiency.
Tune in to gain insights into how technology is poised to tackle some of the industry's most persistent challenges.
EMS@C-Level at electronica 2024 was hosted by IPC (https://www.ipc.org/)
EMS@C-Level is hosted by global inspection leaders Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Global Electronics Association (https://www.electronics.org)
You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.
hello, I'm philip stoughton. I am at electronica 2024 and I'm joined by ashri from cyborg. Ashri, great to see you again. Great to see you as well. How have you been? How's the show?
Speaker 2been to you very nice, very interesting, lots of people happy here yeah it it is.
Speaker 1It's got a positive vibe and the city is just buzzing at the moment, so it's encouraging. It's encouraging to see that you had a recent product launch RTI. Tell me a bit about that and tell me why that's unique and why it's so important to the industry.
Speaker 2Yeah well, the RTI, the real-time interceptor, is actually we are taking actually our product, our capability to utilize the AI to sort electronic components, and actually we are able now to do this real-time. So with the capability of real-time responding to the machine and the machine, while it still holds the pick place machine, still holds the component in the air before it even places the item in place we're able to tell the machine back that this component is good or not and if it's not good, the machine will drop it immediately. And with this capability we're actually taking or offloading the concern from the end customer that they don't even need to follow the boards because we just cleaned them out from all the bad materials, or at least the potential bad materials which could find its way into the problem. And that's you know. For example, automotive there are some sectors in automotive which are not even allowed to rework the boards yeah, no rework allowed, yeah.
Speaker 2And if this is the case, then even if we discover today there is a bad component of this board, you need to replace it. They need to throw away the board. That's a scrap and that's a loss of money and time. And here, with the RTI, they won't need to scrap anything because we eliminate the risk up front, and that's the case.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I think it's really interesting. You know, as soon as I saw the name Realtime Interceptor, there are just two things you think of immediately. Firstly, it's happening in real time, and when I look particularly at the automotive industry, tack time on the line is absolutely essential. They won't consider any application that slows their line down because it is something they've honed and tuned to perfection. But also the idea that you're intercepting problems, you're not just identifying them. You know, if you said it was real-time identifier, that would be good, but it wouldn't be great. So I think that's really important. Tell me a little bit about where you are in terms of adoption. Most of your customers are OEMs rather than EMS companies, but it seems to me that EMS companies are also getting a huge amount of value from the application of your software?
Speaker 2Yeah, definitely, that's right. Well, actually, two types of customer different incentive. The EMS care about the system and are interested in the system because they are getting a more robust process, a more efficient process, and by this they get better profitability. These guys need this profitability and better performance for their customer.
Speaker 2Better performance for their customer, which is a competitive advantage. Today, absolutely OEM is a different story. At the end of the day, the OEM carries all the responsibility when the product goes out there in the field. Who cares? I mean, who takes care of the warranty in front of the end customer? That's just the OEM, and the OEM hates to be exposed when something happens in the field. So with this RTI and even with the other products that we have today, with the TCI, which is the traceability and all this stuff, well, they are fully covered actually. So this is how we are implementing with both. Today we see more OEMs running to adopt first. First, because they're more convenient. They think more about the damage.
Speaker 1They're going to be the people that have the brand damage from the recall in terms of their consumers, but they're also the people that have the large margin. Part of the challenge with EMS companies is kind of a cost-plus business, so it's difficult to apply something new if your OEM customers aren't ready to partner up and help. You do that Definitely. Yeah, it's interesting. You've had a couple of big OEMs, but you're seeing more and more OEMs participating now. Right, tell me a bit about how that's developing.
Speaker 2Well, we see that the OEMs are taking more and more the product and the platform. Usually they're looking more of traceability solution. But it's not just traceability. We have a customer insisted to get the system just to be able to enforce country of origin, which it's not even something that we thought would be interesting. And here is a customer came in and said listen, I need a solution for country of origin because of the restriction. You know the Cold War happening these days. Well, they need to be able to restrict their products and control these restrictions. Now we can do this. I mean automatically, it happens, it's part of the product. So that's another case.
Speaker 2And in different cases, they care about the traceability, they care about cybersecurity, they would like to make sure that they're not using counterfeit, they're not using forged components. There was a customer who came in and said listen, I'm not supposed to get any DC-to-DC devices containing any ProdMarks. Well, that's a good business case. I mean, if you're not supposed to see ProdMarks, well that's a good business case. I mean, if you're not supposed to see ProdMarks and we see ProdMarks, well something is wrong. This was not what you expect to get. These are the directions they're taking us. I'm happy to see that we bring the capability, we bring the technology. But actually the customer is saying they decide how to take it.
Speaker 1Yeah, they decide how to use it. I think one of the really interesting applications that kind of just hit me in the face. Recently I was on a panel with TTI. It was actually an Eric Miskel show. We were talking about the amount of inventory in the supply chain and the concern around date code. So the component industry is like well, you know, you might have two components with a date code that's 23 months but they shouldn't be using after 24 months. One's been stored perfectly, One hasn't been taken care of. So how do we figure out where the date code cutoff is? And my immediate thought was you guys should be talking to Oshri, because they have that data. They can look at that and say actually this 23 month old component is great, these 18 month old components are terrible because they maybe haven't been looked after. So where they've just used date code in the past maybe doesn't make sense. And when they can use real-time, fully 100% inspection, it creates another opportunity for them to save money.
Speaker 2Definitely, and you know what I heard this session. It was a very interesting one around the supply chain and the inventory issues and I think that keep dealing with. I have date code 23. I can use only date code 23, 24. That's it. Not more than two years. Yeah, why should we go there anymore? I mean, if I'm providing you a solution that you can inspect a discrete component who cares about the date code?
Speaker 1Well, you know the simple analogy I make is if I keep my milk in the fridge, it lasts a lot longer than if I leave it out on the counter, and it's 35 degrees Exactly. So you know, it's still got the same use by date on, but it's different. But it's different because if I can.
Speaker 2Well, okay, let's keep your analogy. Yeah, now if I could taste the milk for you, if you can inspect the milk for me, even if it's expired, I would taste it for you, inspect it for you and tell you no, don't worry, it's two years old, but it's still good. Would you drink it? Yeah, absolutely, probably. Yes.
Optimizing Supply Chain Management Solutions
Speaker 1Well, if we have assurance and we have traceability, yeah, it makes sense. Exactly that's what I'm saying here. Yeah, I think what you have is something where you're sitting on the line, you're taking data in real time, you're creating these massive databases of images and you're leveraging AI to interrogate them. No-transcript. As far as supply chain was concerned, the house was on fire and we needed to get components, maybe from the grey market. So how do we protect ourselves from the grey market? You had a solution there. Now maybe the grey market isn't as attractive anymore because there's more fluency of the supply chain. Let's think about how expired our components might be and, again, we need to be inspecting those components. And, by the way, see the history.
Speaker 2It's always between these two corners yeah, we're missing components and buy from the gray market, or we have full inventory over inventory. Yeah, how we consume it and how we manage the energy. Yeah, absolutely the supply chain running between those two, and the amazing part is that every time, as a supply chain person, I'm telling you every time people are shocked by the situation how we got there. Oh my God, how we got there.
Speaker 1Guys, this is the situation.
Speaker 2Let's develop tools to be able to live with it, not to deal with it every time.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It makes perfect sense. Oshri, pleasure to talk to you, love what you're doing. Keep doing that. Keep coming up with new applications and new solutions based on the data you've got, because you do have this ridiculously large database. There's so much value there. Thanks for your time. We'll talk again soon.
Speaker 2Thank you very much, thank you.