Nikkei Electronics Asia -- September 2009
Reports
Premier Farnell Eases the Way for Design Engineers

Premier Farnell plc is an electronics distributor supporting engineers and buyers across the globe. Its primary customers are electronics design engineers (EDE), a segment which has been growing globally at the rate of 6% to 8%; recently the company has been expanding into "high-growth, high-potential areas" such as China, where (operating as Premier Electronics) it now has five offices and five call centers, a Chinese Website, and provides next day delivery in over 110 cities.

Through its group of companies - Farnell, Newark, Premier Electronics, Farnell-Newark, CPC, and MCM - Premier Farnell has a presence in 28 countries. It lists over 3,500 franchised suppliers and has 500,000 stocked products with over 4 million products available on demand.

Beyond supplying products, Premier Farnell has taken a number of measures to "promote collaboration and networking" within the EDE community. Its Websites not only provide engineers with the latest product data, design tools, and technology information, but are also designed to facilitate interaction, collaboration and information sharing.

Collaboration through element14

The company's element14 information portal, launched earlier this year, is a community Website specifically built for electronics design engineers. It is a one-stop resource for information, materials and collaboration, bringing designers, academics, suppliers, journalists and other experts together within one global community.

"We feel that design engineers have this need to connect and collaborate," said Salman Syed, president, Premier Farnell Asia-Pacific. "And that's the whole motivation behind element14." Engineers working on a particular design might not always have the opportunity to discuss aspects of their design with suitably qualified peers in the physical world. And this is where the collaborative side of element14 can help.

Nader Tadros, director of eCommerce, Premier Farnell Asia-Pacific, feels that the collaborative aspect of element14 is especially beneficial to engineers working in Asia: "The average age of EDEs in Asia is quite young, much younger than in North America . . . In Asia, we've seen demographic studies showing that design engineers have to work across multi-disciplines; and they have the added challenge of gathering information but without the experience and deeper expertise possessed by the older design engineers. So they reach out to communities like element14 to gather knowledge."

60-Second Guides; DesignLink

Engineers are often pushed for time, and can find it difficult to keep track of all the legislation being enacted around the world affecting the electronics industry, such as the European Union's Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) initiative, which came into effect in 2006.

The company already has detailed content available on its Farnell Global Legislation Website, but in addition to this Premier Farnell has launched a series of so-called 60-Second Guides, which provide an at-a-glance understanding of the key legislative areas. These guides focus specifically on legislation that impacts electronic design engineers, and help engineers to ensure compliance.

Available guides currently cover aspects of the REACH and RoHS legislation, and the new Batteries Directive, and summarize the key points of the full, published legislative documentation.

Another recent development from Premier Farnell is its new CAD (Computer Aid Design) tool interface, DesignLink, which provides an electronic interface to major CAD tools, enabling electronic design engineers to find and specify millions of parts directly from within their CAD design environment.

"The engineer can then check availability for next day delivery without ever having to leave the design environment - it integrates our product database right into the design environment," said Randall Restle, director of Global Technical Marketing at Premier Farnell.

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