C (2:06)

Majestic. That's the word. Yep.

B (2:09)

So hey, really quick, hey Trisha and Amanda, thanks for all that y' all do behind the scenes. Trisha says happy Buzz day. Say hello and let us know where you're tuned in from. I appreciate that. And Trisha's also dropped link to our friends at Project 44. Hey, speaking of vitamins T squared, who holds down the Fort Force on YouTube is referencing like that commercial back in the day, Flintstones Kids.

C (2:30)

I heard that jingle as I was reading it.

B (2:32)

That's the same 10 million strong and grow. Yeah, man, I hadn't thought of that in forever. Thank you. And as he always says, bring on the nourishment in true Southern form. Great to have you here, T squared and everybody. So let's see here before we dive into the news and have a great guest join us here on the Buzz, powered by Project44. We want to hit four items on the front end, Allison. Okay, so up first, we're going to be talking about. But that said, that we dropped over the weekend. Now that's a great picture as Elaine Benfield had a great interview with her, and she has launched this wonderful digital media platform called Her Stories a year or two ago. And central to the platform is a podcast dedicated to elevating the voices of pioneers, change makers, everyday heroes, but especially the power of women. And so at its core of Her Stories is all built to address a critical gap. Way too many meaningful stories were going untold, Right? So that's where you get her stories from the folks you want to dive into. With that said, you learn more about the incredible mission that Elaine is on. Plus, as always, you're going to find tools, resources, live events, all in the latest edition of. With that said. So, Allison, I got to ask you, I'm sure you had a busy weekend. I think things are very busy at wintech, but did you get a chance spend a little bit of time reading? With that said, I did.

C (3:50)

And I love the fact. What is she. She looking for? A hundred stories? Is that what the kind of the goal is?

B (3:55)

The initial goal. That's right. That's right.

C (3:57)

Initial goal. And to make it all, you know, not only podcasts, not only discussions and interviews, but I guess a book. I mean, it's cool to see. Like, it's not just a, hey, let's capture five or six really cool stories and tell them. It's, it's like an anthem. It's, you know, it's neat. It's really cool to see. And it's a big believer in you can't be what you can't see.

B (4:16)

That's right.

C (4:17)

And so if this next generation find themselves in some of her stories, then

B (4:22)

that's awesome with you. I am with you. You got to see it to be it. And I've heard that from so many folks. And despite all the gains we've made, we got A whole bunch more heavy lifting to do. So it really takes wonderful leaders like Elaine and yourself that matter. Alison.

C (4:36)

Well, you know what's really cool is we've got an open welding position open at wintech. Put a job ad out. And I've been sending the resumes that have been coming through. I don't even look at them. I just send them to my fabrication manager.

B (4:46)

Yeah.

C (4:46)

Up to my office this morning. And he said, is there something you noticed about those resumes? So I'm going to be honest with you, I'm just forwarding them to you. I'm not. I don't have time vet. And he said the majority of them have been women.

B (4:56)

Really?

C (4:56)

I was like, holy cow. He goes, I thought that was pretty.

D (4:59)

He's.

C (4:59)

He has three girls of his own. So he said, I thought that was pretty cool.

B (5:03)

That is awesome. And I bet I would love. And I know you've been in this space for quite some time. I would love to have the historical data in terms of all time applications and see how.

C (5:12)

Yeah.

B (5:12)

Much different that is than historical norms.

C (5:16)

Yeah.

B (5:16)

And we got to change those norms, Allison. Right?

C (5:19)

Yep. Yep.

B (5:20)

That's great. All right, folks, appreciate what. What you're doing, Allison, to help change those norms. And of course, I appreciate what my friend Elaine is doing. Folks, you can learn more about all that we just touched on, plus a lot of resources and perspective right there via the. With that said link. All right, so where are we going next? Well, I'm inviting all of you out there to come with me to Chicago, one of my favorite cities other than it's home to the Cubs. I always give us Braves teams trouble. Right, Allison? Is that right?

C (5:47)

Well, sometimes, I mean, I was at it. I was at a game, and granted, it was probably 20 years ago, but I was at the game at Wrigley Field Memorial Day weekend. I want to say it was 2006, maybe, and the Braves at the time had hit a record home runs against the Cubs that weekend.

B (6:03)

Okay.

C (6:04)

And it was very windy. And I have to say, though, Cubs fans are the nicest people. I love Cubs fans. As the Braves were winning, we had people around us try to buy us beer, man. It's like, wait, that's. Wait, we're on the other side. Hey, they're cool.

B (6:21)

Give people cold free beer and we can solve all the world's ills. But.

C (6:26)

Right.

B (6:26)

Come join me in Chicago, where I'll be attending Decision44, a free event hosted by our friends at Project44. You can hear perspectives from leading companies such as Abercrombie and Rich, Alcon, Eaton, Suntory. New one for me, Taylor Brands a whole bunch more. April 8th and 9th, that's free to attend, but you gotta register, so we encourage you to do that. Tricia is dropping a link right there. And speaking of events, folks, April 29th, as y' all know, it's National Supply Chain Day, so plan to join us at 12 noon Eastern Time for a virtual event that's gonna feature a wide range of supply chain leaders. Plus, I guess isn't, isn't new news anymore, but hey, Billy Ray Taylor. That's right, the Billy Ray Taylor. He's joining us as a very special keynote. He is an author of the bestselling book A Winning Link amongst many other things. So mark your calendars to join us on April 29th. And hey, if you don't join us, that's fine, right? We'd love to have you here, but whatever you do, take that day to celebrate, especially the people that make global supply chain happen everywhere. Every nation should have a national supply chain day. All right, so as I mentioned, Alison, Trisha is dropping links to all this to make it really easy folks to check in on anything we do. Of course, you'll continue to do that throughout the Buzz so that some of these news stories we tackle, you'll be able to go click one click away from kicking the tires on any of the perspectives that we share. So one more thing, Alice, I mentioned, maybe I didn't. I've been talking so much baseball. In the opening here of the buzz for March 30, you attended, this was opening day, Atlanta Braves versus the Kansas City Royals and you captured what I like to call sound of freedom. This is, I think four F35s in four finger formation. Been around for a very long time. So tell us this reminds, this blends for me. It blends baseball. It blends, you know, patriotism and supply chain all in one. But tell us more here, Alison.

C (8:20)

It does. Very cool. So I kind of had the inside scoop. This was coming, so I was prepared with my camera. But Wintech is a supplier to a lot of F35 parts, a couple of different, what they call big primes who report to Department of Defense, Department of War. And yeah, it was just, it's, it was a really cool capture. And it turned out that the world is a lot smaller than you think because these planes and pilots, I believe were from Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama. And when I posted this, I had a dear friend comment and say, and she said, and a proud mom Moment. My son's name is in one of those planes.

B (8:56)

Wow.

C (8:56)

So just, you know, you never know kind of what you come across.

B (8:59)

You never know. And the world is so interconnected and you level settle moments like that, right?

D (9:04)

Yeah.

B (9:05)

I think of sacrifice on so many different levels, so. Love that. Allison and I look forward to many more serious and light hearted moments from the Atlanta Brave. Season is coming up because you're going to be attending quite a few games.

C (9:18)

A couple.

B (9:19)

A couple. So you basically have an apartment at.

C (9:22)

I wish.

B (9:22)

That would be really cool. So, folks, speaking, by the way, again of Allison's post here. This is the F35. Right. Single engine plane. I'm not sure when they rolled the first one off the production line, but over 2,000. I went and checked out the. The program, I call it landing page. It's all kinds of information. Over 2000 suppliers come together to build each aircraft, including almost a thousand small businesses. Allison, about that.

C (9:49)

That's pretty cool.

B (9:50)

Now I'll say. As cool as the F35 is, my favorite still remains the F22 of the modern era. And of course the F16 single engine is legendary.

C (10:02)

And I'm with you on F22. I think that's probably my favorite too.

B (10:05)

Same man, I really wish. I think they cut production they initially planned for, I think triple the amount

C (10:10)

of aircraft so expensive at the time. And now I think probably. Well, a lot of people I think are looking back going, gosh, because we wintech does a lot of support for the maintenance, really, on the planes.

B (10:20)

Okay, all right.

C (10:21)

We'll repair parts and like spares and things like that. But you know, F22 is one of the few planes, if not the only, that we don't sell to other countries.

B (10:29)

I think I remembered that. I think I remembered that. And F35, to your point. I think that I was just on that site earlier. I think there's a dozen countries operating it. Of course, it's got a lot of different roles.

C (10:39)

Right. And different versions. I think we have a version we don't sell.

B (10:42)

That's right.

C (10:43)

Pretty sure, man.

B (10:44)

Okay, Allison, I'm about to nerd out. We got a great guest. I gotta get in focus. I could nerd out about this stuff. I really love what you do. Hey, look at here. Corey Comer is back with us.

C (10:55)

Yeah. Okay. My uncle flew F14s, so.

B (10:58)

Really?

C (10:59)

Yeah. Favorite thing to do is land it on an aircraft carrier at night in the middle of the ocean.

B (11:03)

Oh, I can imagine how challenging that must be. Corey, great to see you, my friend. It's been way too long. You need to drop your link to your Whiskey Focus podcast. Cory, that'd be great. Even on a Monday morning. My stomach almost handle a whiskey podcast. I'm the only kid. Corey, great to see you my friend. Appreciate the great work you do. So we have got a wonderful guest. I mean I've got to do a control alt delete to leave the aviation conversation. I could be there for a whole whole day, Allison. But we got great supply chain stuff. Talk about with a dear friend. With a passion for data driven transformation and manufacturing, Justin Sears specializes in applying cloud based data analytics and workflow automation platforms truly optimize supply chains. In his leadership role at Altium, Justin leads a team positioning Altium software for streamlining hardware development and the sourcing of electronic components for printed circuit boards. So please join me in welcoming Justin Sears, head of product marketing for SAS at Altium. Hey. Hey, Justin. How you doing?

D (12:03)

Good morning, Scott. I'm great. Great to be here with you.

B (12:05)

Great to see you as well. It's been too long, Allison. We had a little fun on the front end because Justin joined us. I'm going say in early March 2025, a few weeks ahead of tariff again I think. So we were having a little fun in the pre show that Justin's got to give obligatory disclaimers when he appears for the first time on programs. So this is our internal program competition challenges supply chain now bracket busting crew. This is the men's side. Look at this. Catherine and Vicki and Mary Kate and Amanda. And let's see, Mary Kate and Amanda probably have the inside edge because Michigan and Yukon are still alive and well. So we'll see. And then secondly, The Bracket Busters 2 is focused on the women's bracket and this is where Justin, Allison, I am within striking distance of Laura and Mike Griswold. And we'll see if South Carolina wins tonight and of course wins it all, then victory is all but certain. Allison, let me ask you about your brackets. How are you doing this year?

C (13:02)

And so unfortunately I didn't submit any. So in a way it's good because now every time team loses or team wins, I look at my husband, I go, I probably would have picked them to win.

B (13:13)

Right?

C (13:13)

And he's like, yeah, I'm sure. I bet. But I'll tell you what I did see was that shot from the UConn guy.

B (13:21)

Yes.

C (13:22)

Oh my gosh, his name against Duke. Last night we were sitting down to eat dinner and we turned our heads and we watched him think that three pointer and went holy cow, that's crazy.

B (13:33)

You know, Duke lost. I think a 19 point advantage was their biggest lead of that game. And then that guy came along and shot a three pointer. Take the lead by one. Justin, we're talking about that. Duke. Duke is Illinois, right? Illinois.

C (13:44)

Yukon, Yukon. Yukon.

B (13:46)

Sorry. Justin, did you see that game yesterday?

D (13:48)

I, I, I missed it. You know, my team wasn't even in the initial draw so I haven't been following it too much. But was good to hear you guys recount it.

B (13:56)

Well, you know Justin, that was, it was a remarkable furious comeback. I think Yukon outscored Duke by 20 points in the second half, which is crazy because Duke only lost like three games all year. But nevertheless, we'll see, folks. Hopefully your brackets are better off than ours. It looks like Alan Jacques is. He's in the 89th percentile for one of his. How about that? Alan, great to see you. And Andrew's back with us from Shropshire. I got that right? I think I nailed it. Andrew just got one Supply chain client calls to listen to you as my favorite supply chain chats. Hey Andrew, that is high praise my friend. I appreciate what you're doing out in industry. I look forward to getting you Allan and maybe even Corey's takes all of your takes on the stories we're getting to here today. So let's get to work. Let's see here where we starting? We're starting with a pretty hefty topic here. Strategic data Intelligence. Allison and Justin Man. So this comes to us from Industrial Equipment News. They point to how strategic data intelligence is reshaping the electronics industry and its resilience. Now they point to a ton of regulatory compliance that many organizations are dealing with. I bet some of y' all can relate to some of these. Restriction of hazardous substances.

D (15:03)

Right?

B (15:03)

O R O H S I think is acronym there. Rose I think some people call it that I believe. Tell me if I'm wrong. Registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals reach also in the EU reach for sustainability. That trade a getdon we talked about earlier, you name it, tons and tons. The real challenge as really the article points out is not only the volume of regulation and complexity but pace of change. Right, the pace we're going a thousand miles an hour and that's on Mondays. On Tuesdays it doubles. But fragmented compliance data is really something that a lot of organizations can struggle with in light of this landscape. Right. A supply chain perspective. All this can greatly complicate our efforts to make quality parts leveraging the right suppliers and you know what manual processes and spreadsheets are highly limiting, especially here in the modern age of digital transformation and beyond. Innovative organizations are turning technology so that teams can have access to that critical compliance intelligence at the point of decision, which helps provide a more proactive ability to when it comes to managing risk and supply chain ecosystems. Now, the article says, quote, the future of the electronic supply chain chain will be defined by strategic data intelligence. Okay, so, Justin, I'mma roll the dice. I'm hoping you're still with us. You're here. All right, wonderful. Because you know folks, Justin works extensively in the electronics industry. So your thoughts on what that article spoke about, Justin?

D (16:30)

Well, you know folks that design electronics and distribute the parts that go into electronics, they have to keep those two things at once. We work with a lot of folks that are designing hardware with electronics inside it. So as you're going along and you're designing the boards and figuring out how it's going to fit in the mechanical structure, what you're not spending time on doing is figuring out how am I going to show if I'm in a regulated environment? I've gone through all the processes and the rules and regs to make sure that I'm testing, especially a medical device, aerospace regulations you need to comply with. You mentioned Rohits and some of the others.

B (17:02)

Yep.

D (17:03)

You don't want to take your eye off the design work to make sure you're thinking about how you're important afterwards. But. But you need all that data. And this is. I'll come back to data a few times so that you need all that data so that when you do need to show your work, you can do that.

B (17:14)

Justin, appreciate the show your work. It's like me talking math with my seventh grade son. He's like, what are you talking about? Like, you got to show you work how you arrived at the answers. It's such a timely point you made, Justin. And did I mispronounce? Is it rohis folks talk about that, Justin?

D (17:31)

I think people say it a few different ways. I've heard it say rous, but rohs sometimes people do you know, Allison, or have you.

C (17:39)

It's rohs in my world. But like you, I've heard it three or four different ways. So I don't think it. There's a wrong.

D (17:45)

We need an expert that knows how to pronounce. But I. I've heard said a couple different ways.

B (17:48)

I think the rule of thumb is as long as you don't follow Scott Luton's my pronunciation of anything, you're going to be safe. You're going to be safe. But. All right. So Allison, follow up. Justin shared a few thoughts about this great article that we got from our friends at Industrial Equipment News. Your thoughts?

C (18:04)

Yeah, you could have a whole supply chain buzz just on this article. I feel like in my world what Justin was saying speaks volumes because it's exactly what we see in our world. We are as a small business manufacturer, we're somebody, we don't do design. So we take already existing blueprints and then we make the parts. But what we are noticing in our industry is we are having our customers say hey, we need you to report reach chemicals. I don't remember what that stands for, but it's essentially a certain series of chemicals and minerals that are monitored.

B (18:34)

Right.

C (18:35)

For especially the eu. And if things are imported to the EU that have those kind of chemicals, they have to be reported because it can only have so much percentage of, you know, and Huron. Well, it's frustrating as a small business manufacturer because just like Justin said, we're busy making the part. We're not so much focused on the oh well, what kind of little tiny compliance thing are we not thinking of after the fact? So we'll have customers who ironically enough will be the design authority on something asking us for the reach info. So in my head I'm like, man, when you design a product and when you say hey, this type of paint has to go on this part, why not just go ahead and then say that paint has this chemical in it, therefore this exists because if the part is manufactured properly, the reach applies them.

B (19:21)

I like it, Justin. And by the way, that reach, I think the acronym you're talking about Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals as, as Allison mentioned, it was a, it's big time EU in the eu. All right, so Justin, give you the final word. It sounds like, it sounds like you and Allison could, could have one of those cold free beers we were talking about earlier and really have some common experiences in the industry.

D (19:44)

And I'll tell you, it, it, it's, I spent a lot of my time getting closer to what folks like you, Allison, do because I'll give you one example. We have a customer who we've been doing business with a lot for a while and they're designing their consumer goods that have electronics within them on our platform. The person that owns the contract is in the US and they have a team in the UK that wanted to test it out and the team in China that manufactures needs to see what you get these global issues and then there's different regulations in different GEOs. So you have to search, somebody has to have the visibility know to make sure that the whole thing is compliant end to end.

B (20:21)

And I should just add to all of that picture that Justin, you shared. This is where spreadsheets really don't cut it. They really don't cut it. So got to find a better way. Good stuff Allison and Justin, man, I'm, I'm going to try to not nerd out on that topic as well. We got a lot more to get to here today. I want to talk about something we talked about last week, Justin, Allison, as we kind of pivot here and that's helium.

C (20:43)

Right.

B (20:43)

We're talking last week about some of the supply chain implications and challenges specifically related to the ongoing Iran war. Now we're going to keep this very non political. We're going to keep this very focused on the business side. Right. Of course we hope that things come to a nice brokered piece but that goes without saying. But we're going to really focus on one of the business implications here like this growing, what is a growing helium shortage says reported here by Reuters. The disruption in global tech supply chains continues to mount as helium supply faces more and more pressure. Helium is used in a variety of roles in electronics industry, including chip making. As we shared last week, Qatar, the country there, has been the target of similar conflict in the Middle east and it's a critical player in the world helium market, the number two largest provider next to the United States. Now Russia, because someone has a great sense of humor in the broader sense of things. Russia is the third largest supplier of helium, which can pose probably some further complications for many organizations trying to come up with a contingency plan. So Justin, I got to ask you, a lot of folks may not be aware of just how extensive and how important helium is in electronics and how fast growing this disruption may end up being. Just in your thoughts?

D (21:59)

Yeah, I mean I can't talk to that from a technical perspective or how that actually plays into the manufacturer of chips. But of course a lot of what I'll be talking about today is how the designs that we support on Altium include chips. And if you're designing something and Alison, I'm sure you can speak to this, you're designing something. You don't know on day one how changing prices of helium are going to affect the price of a component and where that component is going to be in the design that you're making for printed circuit board. You can't keep up. And back to Your comment about spreadsheets, Scott, you can't keep up with all those changes. And the thing that you all know that's so tricky about the supply chain is one thing converts into another thing. So price of helium goes up, that means the price of chips goes up. That means that the design that you've been working on for months, suddenly you can't bring it to market profitably. So what do you do? And it's that uncertainty that we help our customers get ahead of as much as possible.

B (22:52)

And we need all the help we can get when it comes to overcoming that uncertainty. And really uncertainty in all of its different forms. Alison, when you think of anything that gets in the way of the electronics industry and all the various components, I gotta tell you, helium prior to the last couple weeks was probably in my blind spot. But Allison, your take on this, this disruption here.

C (23:12)

Yeah, no, this, this was interesting to me because I've watched as a lot of other, and I'm sure Justin sees a lot of other hardware is just skyrocketed in cost and prices lately. And I wonder how much of this, how much on the design side that our electronic manufacturer, electronic design friends out there are doing to counteract this, only for it to later maybe not be as impactful.

B (23:36)

Right.

C (23:36)

And then how are the changes that they're making later going to impact whatever supplies, you know, revolve around some sort of new constraint? It's fascinating because this kind of stuff, it doesn't overnight all of a sudden we don't all see prices go up. It takes, you know, what do they call a trailing indicator or a leading indicator. I always get too confused.

B (23:54)

That's right.

C (23:55)

But by the time it happens, it's, it's going to be interesting over the next few months.

B (23:58)

You know, it just yalls perspective and really this story about helium. I bet I'm not the only person that hasn't stopped to think about helium since 9th grade chemistry class or something. You know, it really goes back to a big, big picture thought. The more we can invest within our control to strengthen the resilience and, and how our organizations run, how our supply chains run, we'll be more and more prepared for the common curve balls which all we can all probably rattle off, you know, that we face maybe yearly or maybe even monthly and we'll be equally as more prepared for the very uncommon challenges. So we shall see. Let's see here. This is, and help me out. Amanda and Tricia, they say makes the just in time delivery of supplies of helium bit squeaky. A Bit squeaky. Is that a, I think that's a adjective. I think really my English class here and hey, Annabella from Argentina, I hope this finds you well. Looking forward to your comments here today. Yes, we, we don't want supply chains that are a bit squeaky if we can eliminate the squeaks. Okay, Justin and Allison, let's see where we're going next. This is a, this is what I'm going to call on a, on a more positive note, right? More positive note because this story here, as Allison knows, she's had a front row seat at a lot of these discussions as we've talked about reshoring and some of the announcements, Justin, that have been, that have come about, you know, over the last year and some change and to be fair, there's all sorts of reshoring announcements that have gone back for, for years, for that matter. Some come to fruition, others do not.

D (25:26)

Right.

B (25:26)

Others do not. But here, this is a really good story, I think. As reported by CNBC, Apple is expanding its $600 billion American manufacturing program. Now, they call that the AMP, another acronym for y'. All. So if you hear me say it, that's what I'm talking about. Company plans to spend some $400 million from now through just 2030. We're talking four years or so, three and a half on new programs with companies such as Bosch, TDK and others. Its objective, as the name may indicate, is to help manufacture essential materials and components here in the US to support this investment and overall initiative, Apple has said it plans to hire more than 20,000 US based workers for R and D engineering, artificial intelligence and software development. AMP launched the program began launched in 2025. And here in 2026, Apple is on track to purchase over 100 million advanced chips from the new TSMC fab in Arizona. In fact, AMP is poised to support a variety of new semiconductor production facilities as well as broader manufacturing companies across the US which includes building the Mac Mini. Right, the popular Apple device. Building it in Houston in 2026. That's the first time the product has ever been built here in the States. So healthy skeptic that I am, Justin, every so often what's been announced come to fruition. I think this is a really cool story with Apple. Your thoughts?

D (26:49)

I agree. This is the kind of thing that you want to see and when you're looking at manufacturing and putting the pieces and parts together, it's always going to be a little bit more stable and hopefully a little less expensive if you don't have to Ship all those components quite as far as you used to. It's going to reduce the risk and potentially reduce the cost at the end of the day. So it's, you know, Scott, it was about a year ago that you and I talked about new tariffs.

B (27:13)

Yes.

D (27:13)

And what they were going to do. I think one of the things I said at the time is it takes a little while to build a fab or to retool a fab, so don't expect this to come overnight. I would put this in sort of the same bucket. There's an announcement today. We'll see how it comes out. But the thing that I noticed reading the article, Scott, and Allison, is it said you mentioned the 20,000 jobs at Apple. It also referenced supporting more than 450,000 jobs in all 50 states across the supply chain partners. And so I looked up some of the companies on the earlier program and now it's very interesting to see how that breaks out by probably how much business they're doing with the suppliers. So most of the impact is going to be on supply chain partners in terms of supporting jobs. Far more.450 than the 20,000 that Apple plans to hire directly.

B (28:00)

Justin, that's good news in my book. And of course we're going to, we're going to touch on reshoring in, in just a minute. A little deeper and kind of also the bigger picture. Justin, you're right. And Allison, what Justin is saying is his crystal ball works a lot better than mine, number one. But number two, I'm going to double down on it. It's so cool to see the company really put its money where its mouth is. And I mean that very respectfully. But, you know, there's lots of hype, there's lots of lip service, but here, clearly the impact's being felt. Your thoughts, Alison?

C (28:28)

I think it said that Cook had absorbed $3.3 billion in tariff costs. And, you know, rather than flow that down to the consumer, he ate it. And I guess that somebody sat down and went, we can't do this long term. And so that, that investment, I think was, it made a lot of sense. And I'm with you. I'm, I'm glad to see it and I hope it pans out even half of, of what they hope it to be. I'm a Google Pixel user and Android user, so I should be apathetic on the board. Ran, I should say, oh, no, I'm just kidding.

B (28:57)

No.

C (28:58)

But this is a promising thing for manufacturers, so it's good news.

B (29:01)

It is, it is. And we'll see, you know, the, the ripple effect from this program if it does come to full fruition and these numbers that Justin and I both have, have shared and article shares, a ripple effect could be good for a variety of industries and you know, kind of, to Justin's point, you know, talking about, you know, some of the variables we take out of the equation when we kind of reset the production a footprint via reshoring other things. It'll be, will be helpful as we tackle some of the other challenges impacting chip supply. Right. Which we've touched on with the buzz memory memory chips in particular, which of course computers and smartphones. All drawings. It's very, it's fascinating to see the 7D chess that takes place in the electronics industry. Let's do this. We're about to dive in deeper with Justin in just a second and get some of Allison's thoughts on further what's going on. Reshoring electronics and more. First, I want to share a cool event that is on my radar. Some more good news maybe the Supply Chain and Logistics Summit. It returns a, let's see, May 18th and 19th, 2026 at the Red Rock Casino Resort and Spa in Las Vegas. Hey, Red 19. Bet the farm on Red 19, folks. Anyway, it brings together senior procurement executives with innovative suppliers and solution providers for an invitation only premium experience all built around real operational priorities. Now get some of these topics because they're going to be very intuitive. Big sessions are going to focus on big topics such as AI automation and visibility. Check, check, check. Operational optimization through planning excellence and cross functional alignment and resilience and risk management in a volatile geopolitical environment. I feel that one in my bones all that much, much more. Folks. Check out the link that Trisha is dropping. You can learn more about this event coming up in. Was it about two months I think. Right? My math is right. So. All right, so Justin, we're gonna dive deeper with you. And by the way, really quick before I do this, that was my friend Andrew who's joined us. Lots of these programs that use the word squeaky in a new way. So Andrew, I'm gonna steal that one from you. I'm so glad to broaden my vocabulary here on the bus. Justin and Allison. All right, so Justin, let's pick up on that last topic as relates to Apple and its moves that CNBC was reporting on and we'll talk a little more about reshoring because as you just mentioned when you joined us just over a year ago, I think we were all curious and I'm still curious about how much reassuring is going to take place, not just due to tariffs, but certainly due to that trade uncertainty and many other factors we touched on earlier in the show and. And new factors. Right. Because the disruption and the chaos and some of the uncertainty continues to build up a bit. So I want to ask you, Justin, because you had some prognostications a year and some change ago that I think were pretty accurate. So give me some of your comments on what you've seen thus far, you know, in the last year, and maybe some other fearless prognostications of what else we'll. We may see in the weeks and months to come.

D (31:49)

Well, I think what I'll do. I've been on the road lately, Scott. I've been at a couple of trade shows, so I've heard it straight from the horse's mouth. The folks stopping by our booth. One was Design Con in February in Silicon Valley. So on the software side of our hardware software customers combination here at om, and then actually earlier this month in March, I was at Embedded World in Germany. And I can do, for both of these shows, I can do a before after compare one year later. So it was helpful to me to kind of hear how conversations have changed for the hundreds of people coming through our booths and talking to us. And so if I were to sum that.

B (32:27)

Oh, yeah, go ahead, Justin, that sounds great. But right before you launch into this, I gotta get word because I'm sharing a couple pictures of you and the team at the events you mentioned. Right. Both. Let's see Embedded World 2026. And then this is Design Con. I gotta get the four one, one on the gentleman in the middle of this picture because it reminds me of the McDonald's advertising campaign back in the 1980. The Moon Man. Right. What is the story behind the costume?

D (32:55)

He is the Design Con mascot. And I think he's representing his face has. You can see the traces for a printed circuit board.

B (33:03)

Okay.

D (33:03)

Sort of like a walk. A walking circuit board. I've never seen it with his mask off. I know it was like personally, but he's. He definitely. He's. He's a favorite at the show. People like to get pictures with him.

B (33:14)

I love it. Looks like a. Looks like a guy that you'd want to grab a cold. One of those cold beers with. Cold free beers with. All right, so Justin, I'm with you. You're going to kind of compare and contrast all the conversations that y' all have had this year. Those events last year at those events. What are some common themes that have emerged in.

D (33:30)

Yeah, you know, I'll start with designcon. The thing that really stood out to me for us is we serve at Altium, very small designers and then very large enterprise companies and usually you pick a show and it's going to skew one or the other. I think what you're seeing is a lot of smaller designers, maybe venture backed in the Silicon Valley. They're coming up and they're starting things from scratch with a modern software stack. And so what that allows them to do in many cases it leapfrog folks that have been doing things with older systems. And so you see this. I looked around our booth at designcon and as a marketer it was very good for me to see smaller ops Altium develop our product, our solution. That's for those smaller teams all the way up to Agile Enterprise for very large companies.

B (34:19)

Right.

D (34:19)

And we had pretty much an equal level of demos going on across that. And then the product that I'm in charge of, agile teams is more the mid size. The folks that are kind of grown out their early stage spreadsheets, they can't carry those anymore. They need something that's a little bit more structured, that still allows them to move quickly. So I was spending more time with agile teams but I'm looking sideways and I can see the large companies that are really small companies all able to engage and think about doing new things more efficiently that they couldn't do before for.

B (34:48)

I like it, I like it. Allison. When you think about doing things more efficiently and you think about this landscape that we've, we've painted quite a picture, right? We've painted quite a picture between regulatory, trade, what I'll call just general ongoing disruption that comes with, and challenges like, and headaches that come with managing supply chains, teams and business leaders. We've got to continue to keep our eyes, our head on a pivot, looking for better ways of finding efficiencies, innovation and in real tangible terms. Your thoughts, Alison?

C (35:20)

Yeah, for sure. That that spoke to me when Justin said that those that are starting from scratch and they're starting with the new greatest, latest and greatest stuff are leapfrogging those who may have been around a while but either are dragging their feet or don't have the dollars to upgrade or you know, and so on. So I think that speaks to a lot of different industries too. In manufacturing I'm seeing a couple of kind of startups happen and they're posting pictures of, you know, their beautiful 5 axis manufacturing, CNC Mills and all these things. And it's like, okay, this is kind of interesting. There's something to be said for those that have been in the industry for a long time and bring that value with it. I almost feel like those that are. That are starting from scratch in the terms that Justin is talking about. I think the fresh perspective is probably really good.

B (36:01)

Yeah, undoubtedly. Especially that fresh perspective that Allison's touched on, Justin, that leaders, despite if they've been around 200 years. Right. And they've got a big competitive advantage on a lot of their. A lot of their competitors in the market. However, we know that there's some great equalizers at play right now between AI and many other, you know, as you called it, a modern tech stack and all the different things that go into the modern tech stack or modern technology approaches. And that if we don't look for that fresh perspective Allison's talking about, we can really. Those big gains, that big advantages can start shrinking as your competitors lean into all of that and then some and don't lean into how we've always done business, which of course is the cost is question maybe in the history of business. Your thoughts, Justin? This is really it. I look at in many ways as an imperative, a fresh perspective imperative in the modern business landscape.

D (36:53)

Huh? Yeah. And you know, the other show that I mentioned was Embedded World, that's in Nuremberg, Germany, and that was beginning of this month, seems like a long time ago, but there's a place where you have very old automotive companies that are looking the United States and the west coast to figure out how the kind of retool and, and become more agile in how they're doing things. And so it was very interesting. One change that I saw there is I was at that show last year and we would talk about the cloud component of what we offer, would say, wait a minute, we don't do cloud. That was last year. One person at the show this year stopped me with that. Everybody else said, tell me more. And so I don't know what that means for them internally, but they're starting to be a loosening and an acceptance of different ways of doing compute. And what I get most excited about, why I love joining this show, is the connection between hardware, which needs that precision, that repeatability, and software, which is a constant infusion of new ways of doing things. And making those two things work well together is a. Is a real trick. That's what we spent a lot of time thinking about at Altium.

B (37:57)

I like it. I like it. Okay, so I'm blinking and we're fast approaching the end of today's edition of the buzz for March 30th, so I'm gonna, we're gonna have a fast and furious finish. Justin and Allison, we're gonna touch on a variety of other things really quick. Justin, I bet I know you're excited with a lot of things you are doing at Altium, but if you had to break it down into, you know, one thing, one initiative for 2026, one innovation that you and the team have unlocked this year, you jump out of bed thinking about each day. What is that, Justin?

D (38:27)

Well, at the Embedded World show in Germany, we announced Octopart Discover.

B (38:31)

Okay.

D (38:32)

We own Octopart, which is a search engine for electronic components. So it's for this audience, folks that need to purchase and price components for their hardware. And we announced a way, a new solution, octopart Discover, which goes beyond just searching for parts and starting to search for system engineers, designers. They can start with the block diagrams, which are kind of groups of parts, right? So they don't have to start from scratch. And those block diagrams are tried and true and tested hundreds, if not thousands times over. So you can go to these sort of marketplace of design blocks and start putting them together. So you don't have to start with a blank board, but you can start with ideas, groups of chips that might get you to where you want to be. Now, you can still swap out chips if one of them becomes unavailable or too expensive. Expensive. But it's really going to help the designers move a lot more quickly and really unifies for us at Altium Visibility. We have another supply chain for those components.

B (39:27)

Okay, you mentioned a couple different things. I think that gets all supply chain practitioners and professionals and leaders attention, visibility, alignment, design velocity, I'll call it. Right. And, and more certainty of what we're trying to do and get accomplished each and every day. Kind of going back to that first article, Allison, really quick, what did they call it? Strategic Design Intelligence. I think that was how they put it. Having all the information you need at that decision point. Sign me up for three of those. Alison, your quick comments here.

C (39:57)

Yeah, no, that is dead on. I, we, we use a similar search engine for specific military components. And just to your point earlier, Justin, the data, when, when it's all siloed or when it's all in one place doesn't do us much good.

B (40:09)

Like it. Okay, so let's do this. I'm going to shift gears here, Justin. We can't spend a whole bunch of time on this. We're Gonna have to have you back, Justin. We're gonna have to have a. Have a bookend episode of Justin Sears on the Buzz. But love what you, one of your colleagues did here by hosting a webinar, I think it was a few weeks back, that really focused on the growing security concerns in that electronics development environment I know you and Allison and some of our audience members are very familiar with. So if I. If you had to bow it down to one or two key takeaways, Justin, from. I think. Is it Renata? Renata Lang. Is that right?

D (40:42)

Yeah.

B (40:43)

So based on this webinar conversation, what's a couple of key takeaways that folks got to keep in front of them?

D (40:48)

I'll say visibility and regulation. So, as I mentioned before, you need to have visibility into who's accessing your design and development environment. If you don't know, this gets back to the point I was making earlier. Going from a small kind of one team shop with 10 people in a building to multiple offices, multiple people coming in as part of the design process gets harder to determine who has access to that design. And then on the regulatory view, you also have to show that you're doing your due diligence to making sure that you're protecting that chain of custody and bringing people in the design as well. So that's what Renata spoke about. The way I sum it up is when people ask me about security, I ask them, okay, how are you sharing your designs? And they'll. They'll say, well, we don't do cloud because, you know, we don't know if we can trust it or not. And I say, well, how do you share your designs with your contract manufacturer? And they say, oh, we send it as an email attachment. I go, wait a minute. You're just telling me about security. I could send that email attachment to the wrong Allison, and suddenly my IP is out there in the world, and I have no control over it. So that's why we talk about cloud being the most secure. You can authenticate people when they come in. You can see what they do. You can track their behavior. You can monitor it much more effectively than if you're in a dispersed email active environment.

B (42:04)

All right, so Alison, get you to comment on what you just heard there from Justin. But first, folks, if that topic you know, really optimizing your security in the whole electronics development realm, space environment, go check out this free webinar that one of Justin's colleagues, Renata, put together. So, Allison, sending email attachments and inviting bad actors to come in and and sit on our.

C (42:28)

All it takes is your email to get hacke right all of a sudden. Right.

B (42:32)

And I know you're, you're having, you're part of a lot of conversations and what I'll call change in industry when it comes to how, especially the defense supply chain ecosystems, how things take place there. Your thoughts in terms of what Justin shared?

C (42:45)

It makes a heck of a lot of sense to, to have your things in, like you said, a secure cloud environment. And I think additionally, maybe as a side benefit, you have more control over that configuration management as well. So. And you do have a design and you're working on things and your customer's feedback or you need to change something now. You're not labeling things like we did in the old days. Like, you know, final, final version 3.1

B (43:09)

takes me back to my metal stamping days. Alice.

C (43:12)

Final. No, really, this is final. Xls. Yeah.

B (43:16)

All right, so let's do this. We're. We're about to make sure folks know how to connect with Justin and with Allison. So you can continue conversations here that we've had just over the last hour. But really quick, I want to share one great blog article. So Alison, you may know about this. Justin, you may know about this. I don't know, but we, we rolled out a new website at Supply Chain Outcome last year, right? And my favorite thing is the Resource Hub. I'm nerding out about the Resource Hub. We got blogs, we got resources, white papers, you name it. And this great article from Deborah Dole about the geopolitics of junk, which is a collection of thoughts from green biz. 2026 is really good stuff. So folks, I invite you, I'm not going to do it justice here and invite you to go check out the geopolitics of junk right here. Trisha's dropping an easy link. Go check it out. And while you're there, give us ideas of what you'd like to see what would be helpful for you in that Resource hub. All right, so let's do this, Justin, you and the team. Justin, I Hear you've got 47 more trade shows you're getting to by the end of the year. First off, is that true, Justin?

D (44:21)

No, no, no. At least, at least four. But we might have done that last year when we were getting back on the road, but we've trimmed it down out to the most important ones.

B (44:31)

That's important because, you know, as I know Alison knows, we talked about this. Here's an event for every day of the year and at Some point in time, work's got to get done. So Justin, I really appreciate what you and the team are doing for businesses of all sizes. How can folks connect with you to continue the conversation on anything you've said here today?

D (44:49)

I'd be very happy to interact with folks on my LinkedIn. It's just Justin Sears. There is another Justin Sears out there, but he's just 6 foot 8 basketball player. That's not me. So look for the guy that looks like what you're seeing right now and then go to altium.com and especially check out agile teams, which is the solution that I mentioned for mid market. So if you're one of those folks that is thinking twice about emails and spreadsheets and you want to move up to something that's a little bit more controlled, a little bit more structured because your operations are becoming more sophisticated.

B (45:21)

Yep.

D (45:22)

I encourage you to look at agile teams.

B (45:23)

Outstanding. Outstanding. And we're dropping both links right there. Thank you. Tricia and Amanda, both links right there in the chat. And then Allison, I got a. And Justin, by the way, thank you for being here. We're going to wrap in just a second or two. Don't go anywhere. Allison, I love what you're doing on a variety of levels. Right. Action oriented leadership for sure. But in particular, my favorite of all the missions you're on is the Dave Kreche Foundation. And check this out, Justin, we're talking about this pre show. Look at this. Helping local kids play the sports they love. We're talking about over 2,300 kids playing football. All the sports, all the sports that have become so pricey. So Allison, how can folks, if they want to connect with you on the cool things you're doing in industry or they want to connect with you on your nonprofit, your powerful nonprofit work, how can folks connect with you?

C (46:12)

Definitely find me on LinkedIn. Allison Giddens I don't know if there are other Allison. I'm sure there are. But I'm the only one that happens to be in supply chain and nonprofit sports world. Probably definitely connect with me. If you do connect, rather than follow, please leave me a note because I get a lot of spam and bots and I don't always accept connections. So if you put in your connection request, hey, you saw us on supply chain. Now I will most certainly accept.

B (46:34)

So follow that advice and you can also learn more@davecrace.com A lot of good stuff here, folks. I'll tell you. Where did the hour go? Justin and Allison, it's been delightful to spend time with you here today. It's hard to believe we're almost in April 2026. Goodness. Justin Sears with Altium. Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate what you're doing out in industry again, as I mentioned, to help companies of all sizes find certainty, successful certainty in this highly uncertainty environment. But thanks for being here, Justin.

D (47:04)

My pleasure. Thank you so much. I hope we can do it again soon.

B (47:07)

We will do it again soon, of course. Also, big thanks to my esteemed co host, Allison Giddens. Again, appreciate all that you're doing in industry and at the Dave Kreche Foundation.

C (47:16)

It was fun to hang out with y'. All.

B (47:17)

It was. I'll tell you, I learned lots of new things here today. I should also give A big high five to our friends at Project44. Be sure to join me in Chicago at Decision44 in April. You can learn more at project44.com Big thanks to man and Trisha behind the scenes. But folks, you know your homework. Big thanks to all of our folks that tuned in from around the world. You got to take one thing that you heard here from Justin or from Allison, do something with it. Deeds, not words. Put it into practice. You know, that's how we're going to continue to transform global supply chain. Well, all that said, on behalf of the entire supply Chain now team Scott Luden, challenge you do good, get forward, be the change that's needed. And we'll see you next time right back here on Supply Chain now. Thanks everybody.

A (47:56)

Join the Supply Chain now community. For more supply chain perspectives, news and innovation, check out supply chain now.com subscribe to Supply Chain now on YouTube and follow and listen to Supply Chain Now. Wherever you get your podcasts.