The effects of the electronic chip shortage have been felt across various industries, including automotive, consumer electronics, and industrial machinery.
The chips shortage has had a significant impact on machine builders worldwide, causing disruptions to their supply chains. Delays in production have led to missed deadlines and reduced output, resulting in lower revenue and increased costs.
Machines rely heavily on electronic components, which are essential parts of the automation systems such as PLCs, HMIs, motor drives and sensors that operate the equipment’s. With the shortage of electronic components, machine builders have experienced a decrease in the availability of these critical components, resulting in longer lead times.
Machines are usually developed based on the automation solution from a single manufacturer. Missing a single component from this manufacturer can stop production with no short term alternatives.
Although the chip shortage is strongly affecting all actors in the electronic industry, innovative solutions are found to help machine builders to maintain their production and deliver to their customers.
Elausys is an electronic engineering company located in Belgium that designs, develops and manufactures custom electronic solutions for building and industrial applications.
Nicolas Detournay, founder of Elausys, explains how the company is able to help machine builders find alternatives to the standard automation systems by designing custom electronic solutions and managing the complete supply chain from individual electronic chips to final devices.
Aseptic Technologies, a leading company in aseptic filling solutions for the pharmaceutical industry was also affected by the chip shortage for the production of their laser resealing equipments. Where automation manufacturers have lead time close to a year, a dedicated control system was designed, developed and manufactured by Elausys in less than four months to compensate for that struggling situation. The new control system is a fully integrated device that controls the equipment with an embedded webserver to host the HMI. Using standard Web technologies, the system can be operated from any touch screen equipped with a web browser. The new control system was successfully validated according to pharmaceutical procedures, and production in series is ongoing.
Considering the production needs, Elausys has secured all critical components needed for the coming 2 years and continues sourcing to prevent any shortage in the future for these specific components. It provides a secured and managed supply chain for the automation system of this equipment.
Patrick Baleriaux, CEO of Aseptic Technologies :
“The situation turned tough when delivery time for key control system components became unpredictable, leading to unacceptable delays for shipping our equipment to our pharma and biotech clients. Thanks to the alternative solution developed together with Elausys in less than four months, deliveries resumed on time with a new version of the equipment that perfectly meets client’s expectations. Moreover, our supply chain is now secured for the next two years, which is of highest value considering the international context.”
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