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According to IPC (Northbrook, IL), the North American IMS/PCB Industry book-to-bill ratio for May 2004 remained steady at 1.11.

The ratio is calculated by averaging the index numbers for orders booked over the past three months and dividing by the average index numbers for sales billed during the same period. A ratio of more than 1.00 suggests that current demand is ahead of supply, which indicates probable near-term growth.

Shipments increased 41.3% from May 2003 and orders booked increased 62.4%. Compared to last year, shipments of printed circuit boards are up 36.3% year-to-date, with bookings up 50.3%.

The shipment index was up 5.5% sequentially to 138.7 and the booking index was 168.8, up 23.8%.

The indices are calculated by setting the base year (1992) equal to 100 and then multiplying the monthly growth rates of the actual shipments and bookings by the corresponding index number. A shipment index number of 117.0, for example, indicates that shipments are 17% higher than average monthly shipments in 1992.

Based on "same store" data -- a measure of those companies that reported last year and this year -- PCB shipments grew 43.8% in May over last year, and orders jumped 67% year-on-year.

www.ipc.org

To help independent distributors better identify and protect themselves against fraudulent and substandard parts, the Independent Distributors of Electronics Association (IDEA, Princeton Junction, NJ), a non-profit trade association that represents the independent market segment, recently announced the availability of its Electronic Components Inspection Manual.

The manual, available to IDEA members only, establishes general requirements for the receiving and inspection of electronic components by brokers, suppliers or independent testing laboratories.

IDEA created the manual with the following objectives in mind:

To obtain sufficient information through inspection activities at vendor and licensee/applicant facilities to assure part authenticity.
To ensure that vendors are complying with the applicable industry requirements.
To inform industry/vendors of instances involving substandard, suspected counterfeit or fraudulently marketed vendor products and to gather and provide timely information to system users.
To assure that counterfeit and fraudulently marketed products are traced to their source and that system users are informed and alerted of possible suspected parts.
To inform private and federal agencies of appropriate matters involving substandard products.
To assure that system users' programs and their subsidiaries, as applicable, have an effective system for reporting counterfeit and fraudulently marketed products.
To provide technical assistance to system users for identifying counterfeit and fraudulently marketed products.

www.IdofEA.org

ST. LOUIS -- LaBarge Inc. has been awarded a $10.7 million contract to continue to provide Northrop Grumman with electromechanical subsystems and modules for a state-of-the-art automated mail sorting system. The award continues LaBarge's production of the assemblies through May 2007.

LaBarge-built equipment is part of the Automated Flats Sorting Machine-Automated Induction (AFSM-ai) system, a fleet of machines that together can sort 26 billion pieces of flat mail per year. LaBarge began manufacturing the subsystems and modules in July 2005, under a previous contract. The equipment enhances the system's in-feed units, which the company manufactured between 1999 and 2002.

LaBarge will perform the work at its Huntsville, AK, facility.

BUENOS AIRES -- Foxconn Electronics may site a manufacturing plant in Argentina in order to work more closely with its customers in Central and Lain America, according to a China language publication.

The Apple Daily further reported that Foxconn's wholly-owned handset subsidiary Foxconn International Holdings is considering a R&D center in Japan.

MIDDLETOWN, PA -- Phoenix Contact officials from Germany and the U.S. marked 25 years of U.S. operations by breaking ground for a $12 million expansion project at U.S. headquarters in Middletown.

The company is building a new 45,000 sq. ft. distribution center and expanding its manufacturing facility from 28,000 to 90,000 sq. ft.
The distribution center is slated for completion in 2007, and the manufacturing expansion is expected to be finished by 2008.

“It was an ambitious and visionary decision of my brother Gerd Eisert, the architect of the Phoenix Contact business activities abroad, to enter the North American continent 25 years ago,” said CEO Klaus Eisert. “He was convinced that this highly developed nation would be a future market for Phoenix Contact. At that time, we were competing with a small range of European DIN-rail terminal blocks on the one hand and PCB terminal blocks on the other hand. This turned out to be a success story!

“The market chances with the product range completed by surge voltage protection, Interface modules and automation technology have not changed today. We will do our utmost to provide for more marketability and thus for more customer satisfaction.”

Over 120 employees have been hired during the past year and a half, and the company plans to add 250 more by 2010.

Last year the company became a Trans-National Corporation, and the Middletown site, along with headquarters in Germany and China, became one of three Regional Business Units (RBUs). The Americas RBU is responsible for R&D and engineering of new products for all of the Americas subsidiaries.