The Road Ahead: How Electronics Is Evolving

Lavanya Rammohan, Research Analyst, Electronics & Contract Manufacturing Practice, Frost & Sullivan

The future of the electronics industry involves smart homes, smart factories, green IT, cloud computing, robotics, intuitive consumer products, smart and artificial intelligence-based production, nanomaterials, and flexible electronics, among other emerging business trends, according to a survey recently conducted by Frost & Sullivan and EBN.

The survey strived to understand the evolution of product design and provide some roadmaps for 2020. The survey had 570 respondents, whose responses were interesting, to say the least.

The underlying themes were the development of more powerful and intelligent products with disruptive technology and an increased reliance by OEMs on contract manufacturers to support product design and design for manufacturability. As urbanization increases and we head toward a smart society, 34.4 percent of respondents picked smart homes as the product or trend that will have the greatest impact on electronics manufacturing and connected devices. As the industry transitions toward increasing automation, smart cars and smart homes have also made significant inroads into the design and validation stages.

Electronics product design, functionality, and component sizes are expected to evolve rapidly. These innovations will have a direct impact on manufacturing techniques. A resounding 58.2 percent of respondents agreed that smart and artificial intelligence-based production will be the norm within the next 10 years. Power generation and smart grids will also play a vital role in defining green and energy-efficient manufacturing techniques by 2020.

Companies will benefit from things like increased virtualization, mobile applications, real-time communications, advances in diagnostics and monitoring, and the blurring of the lines between human and machine interfaces (medical robotics, etc.)

The ease of understanding the next big innovation lies in the ability to capture the value and magnitude of the impact on consumers. Additionally, the benefits and effects will vary by industry.

Companies and thought leaders are well aware of the impact of technology innovation and a first-to-market strategy. The ability to spot the fastest-growth products/segments and allocate the right resources (talent and capital) will have a great impact on success. And cross-pollination -- the ability to transfer best-practices from one industry to another -- will play a vital role in the bid for competitive positioning.

It is important to note that, with economic uncertainty ahead, product roadmap development requires a different level of commitment. We would like to hear from you. How do you think the current economic trends will shape R&D and innovation across different industries? How will this impact the electronics supply chain?