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Avoiding Counterfeit Electronic Components
If there is one cardinal rule that electronics buyers should follow to reduce the risk of buying counterfeit or substandard parts it is to know the source of the parts.
While that seems simple, all too often buyers who have purchased bogus parts have done so without knowing anything about the supplier. In times of shortages, buyers often scramble for parts and may buy components from a source they would not normally consider if the parts were not in short supply. In other cases, buyers make opportunistic purchases for components priced at below market value. Sometimes those parts end up being substandard or counterfeit.
"In some cases, the parts are from rejected lots with genuine markings from component manufacturers. The parts got into the field through pilferage," says Harvinder Sembhi, vice president supply chain strategy and planning for electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider Celestica, based in Toronto. "So when you look at the marking, the parts appear genuine, but there is a quality issue on the inside. In other cases, the parts are from suppliers who are knowingly making counterfeit components and selling them in the market," he says.
While there are no figures available about how many fake parts are sold each year, the problem is getting worse, according to suppliers, distributors and buyers. Some say the problem worsened when a lot of electronics manufacturing moved to low-cost countries such as China. Others say the Internet has played a big role because Internet search engines make it easier to sell both genuine and counterfeit parts.
"It is worse than it was 10 years ago only because of the ease of flow of information," says Doug Kelly, president and CEO of Smith and Associates, an independent distributor based in Houston. "It is easy for people to advertise products. The barriers to making contact with people are much lower with the Internet. There always has been bad product in the marketplace, but it is able to move more freely now as information has sped up," he says.
By James Carbone
