转载自：Electronics 360 Zachariah Peterson
电子产品供应链的全球化帮助启动了制造能力向东南亚的大规模迁移。今天，可以公平地说，电子元件和组件的“大部分”制造能力已经从消费市场转移到海外。有助于向全球供应链过渡的一个因素是低廉的物流和运输成本，尤其是来自中国的成本。根据缩放定律，半导体组件成本在过去 30 年中也大幅下降。
在过去的 20 年里，随着物流成本普遍上升，这种情况慢慢转变，而且由于短缺和经纪人活动，零部件成本出现了显著波动。最近发生的最明显的事件是在 COVID-19 危机期间，以及随后在工业化国家刺激措施推动的消费需求增加期间。前所未有的需求加上劳动力短缺和一般零件/原材料短缺，体现在运输、电子元件的定价上，并最终导致生产商和消费品的通货膨胀。
哪些成本受影响最大？
这些因素在推动电子产品制造成本方面起什么作用？一般来说，应该检查三个方面：
• 物流和采购成本
• 零件和生产成本
• 无形成本
让我们看看当今生产和采购环境中的这三个成本驱动因素中的每一个。
小批量与大批量生产
当比较大批量和小批量生产时，零件成本的差异变得非常明显。有一个影响每个人的普遍成本问题，然后由于能够从半导体制造商那里获得分配而出现特定于数量的采购问题。
自 1990 年代中期以来，在漫长的时间长征中，生产组件的成本有所下降，而半导体制造商的利润率则保持相对稳定。根据美联储经济数据 （FRED），电子元件和半导体行业的生产商定价出现了自 2020 年 10 月以来的最大涨幅，向批发客户和分销商收取的元件成本增加了 7%。
过去 20 年的电子制造成本。来源：FRED
对于小批量生产，情况要糟糕得多，因为公司更经常被迫依赖经纪人网络。较小的生产商和 OEM 可能无法从半导体制造商那里获得配额，因此他们必须通过分销商和经纪人网络来获得元件。
海外经纪人一直无情地从西方分销商那里购买流行零部件的库存，并以高价转售这些零部件。这为上述所有情况带来了盗窃、假冒组件、有缺陷的真组件和极端成本的风险。风险回报状况对许多公司来说是不可接受的，因此他们可能只是选择不生产或反复修改设计以适应替代零件。因此，与晶圆厂和组装供应商合作变得更加困难，因为他们在适应变体时并不总是提供相同水平的批量定价。最终，这些零件成本会转嫁给最终客户。
Freight container costs jumped substantially during the last few years before settling back down, showing how vendors need to factor this into costs. Source: Statista
Container costs return to normal in 2023
Following the 2020-2021 explosion of consumer demand, then the later tightening of monetary policy and credit, the freight rate has essentially returned to normal as consumer demand for products manufactured overseas declines.
Other data from Bloomberg’s Freightos Global Container Index shows similar astronomical rises in the freight rate for container shipping. According to IMF data, shipping costs alone accounted for up to 5% reduction in margin (on a dollar basis) for many businesses. Companies then have to make the difficult decision of how to balance those additional costs through expense reduction, price increases, change in sourcing model, or a combination of these strategies. Shipping costs alone were then projected to account for 1.5% of worldwide price inflation.
Intangible costs
There are additional costs that are not obvious simply by looking at parts and shipping costs. These cannot always be passed to the end customer, but they do impact a company’s ability to be competitive and gain a first-mover advantage over other businesses in the same industry/vertical. Some of the intangible factors that affect electronic manufacturing costs include:
• Impaired competitiveness due to component delivery delays or out-of-stock parts.
• Increased design effort due to variant creation.
• Lost market share due to product delivery delays.
Intangible costs are hard to quantify and are not obvious until they have already been incurred, so it is difficult to pass these onto a customer. Instead, companies have to address these problems operationally in the hopes that they can maintain a sustainable supply of raw materials and parts, stay on production schedules, and ultimately deliver product to market.
Summary
The costs outlined in this article will always persist in the electronics industry. Recent events on the world stage have made control over these costs much more important, and they have hit closer to home for consumers who just want to purchase the latest gadgets.
To summarize, some courses of action designers can take for cost control include:
• Identify possible alternative components and regulatory constraints early.
• Create orders early and lock-in part selections based on features.
• To help balance parts availability with demand, create design variants before production.
Design teams need to anticipate problems, not react to them. The challenges outlined above are waning for now, but we all know the cyclical nature of electronics production and consumer demand. Some additional planning on the front end can keep companies competitive and on-schedule on the back end, and some prototyping spins might be eliminated as well.
