Steve at NASA Sponsored Conference

Calabria presenting at the CALCE conference in College Park Maryland, organized by SMTA and sponsored by NASA.

The CALCE conference is the premier industry industry symposium on Counterfeit Electronic Components.

 

P. Steve Calabria presents at the CALCE conference

PC Components' President P. Steve Calabria presented a paper at the CALCE conference in College Park Maryland. Calabria was invited to speak by Dr. Diganta Das, Ph.D the Conference Chai on the behalf of NASA.

The symposium is organized by the SMTA in conjunction with Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. This symposium is a valuable resource for quality and reliability managers, supply chain managers, brand protection specialists, inspectors, marketing and procurement policy makers, contracts and legal management, security specialists and government agencies. The focus of this conference was to provide relevant information to professionals that can be used for solving problems today while planning for a different business and technology environment in the future.

Calabria spoke before an estimated 300 industry professionals, mostly NASA prime contractors and Defense Department officials. He discussed efforts made by he and other Independent Distributors to mitigate the counterfeit and substandard part problem.

The paper Calabria presented, "Purchasing Electronic Components on the Open Market", was co-authored with Debra Eggeman the Executive Director of the Independent Distributors of Electronics Association (IDEA). It discussed the Electronic Component supply chain and how Independent Distribution provides a vital link in the Chain.

Calabria also discussed IDEA-STD-1010, "Determining the Acceptability of Electronic Components Distributed on the Open Market". This standard, developed under Calabria's administration as President of the IDEA and sited by NASA in AS5553, was developed in collaboration with 30 of the top global Independent Distributors.

Immediately following the speaker session of the conference, Calabria participated in an industry expert question and answer panel in which he, along with other industry experts answered attendee questions as they relate to counterfeiting of electronic components and counterfeit part mitigation. Also participation on the panel, seated immediately alongside Calabria, was Brian Hughitt NASA's Quality Director. Hughitt, responsible for Quality concerns across NASA, including missions to Mars, Neptune, and beyond discussed the difficulties NASA has procuring obsolete electronic components. Other industry experts included representatives from Intel, Analog Devices, Rochester Electronics, and Arrow Electronics.