Providing a voice to the interconnect industry

For many organisations, even those within the connector arena, ITSA is still a fairly unknown quantity. Despite being in existence since 2008 in a variety of forms, Biggs stated that it still seems to be one of the industry’s best kept secrets.

The reason for this seems partly down to the fact that for many companies in the connector space, it’s a case of ‘been there, done that’. Many of ITSA’s current membership base had previously been part of old forums like the IBF (Interconnect Business Form), and the Connector Manufacturers Association (CMA), etc.

While that seemed to tick most industry boxes for a while, in the early noughties, many members of Intellect, the previous association dedicated to the industry, began to drift away due to a perceived lack of membership value, high cost, and lack of direction. The consequences of this was that the association drifted into obscurity.

Biggs added: “At that point there were a few individuals at Intellect who got together and discussed whether there was any mileage in taking the membership that used to exist and trying to create something for ourselves.”

Therefore, in 2008 the British Connector Manufacturers Association (BCMA) was formed, with six initial members coming over from the former Intellect association. The initial plan was to have a rolling chairman from each of the member companies. However, as Biggs commented: “While that sounded great on paper, this didn’t really work in practice because everyone was working a day job, had other priorities, and so their focus was not on the association. At the time I was still involved with the association despite having retired from my role with Huber+Suhner, so I was approached to take over as the association’s first external chairman.”

While the association was still growing, it wasn’t at the pace Biggs wanted. At a membership meeting it was hit upon that being called the BCMA was actually misleading as it gave potential members the impression that you had to be British and had to be a manufacturer – neither of which was the case.

Relaunch

“Off the back of my appointment as external chairman, we relaunched in 2017 as ITSA (the Interconnect Technologies Suppliers Association),” added Biggs. “With the aim of not only encouraging new members, but to be more involved in the things that actually impacted our industry such as standards committees, RoHS compliance and exemptions etc.

Commenting on ITSA, Andrew McQuilkan, Sales and Marketing Director, Harwin, explained that while he was aware of the historical associations that had represented the industry in a variety of forms over the years, of which Harwin had been previous members, ITSA was an entity that was not on his or Harwin’s radar until very recently.

He commented: “I wasn’t aware of ITSA until around 18 months ago. Harwin had been part of Intellect previously, but [for the reasons already mentioned] had dropped out. However, after meeting with ITSA, it was clear that they are a true voice for the industry, not least because they are addressing some of the problems that exist for the members – problems that Harwin perhaps can’t solve on its own, but the association can. It’s been very beneficial for us.”

So, since 2015 the association has seen steady growth in its membership and now have 15 full members. This was then followed by the creation of an associate membership category for people who wanted to be, or were, suppliers into the full membership base from a product or service point of view, or who simply wanted to be linked with the association because of the benefits to their own organisation.

Legislation

Biggs explained that the association has started to gain significant traction over the last few years and has become a key influencer in the industry, highlighted by the fact it has recently been registered as a stakeholder in the Oko Institute, an organisation involved in all things covered by the RoHS (The Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive 2002/95/EC) group. “Off the back of this we became part of an umbrella project which consists of 65 association members which purely focuses on RoHS exemptions submitted to the EU on behalf of its membership,” Biggs added.

He continued: “We’ve been contributing to that for the last couple of years. It’s an interesting organisation made of large, global companies who are concerned about what the EU are proposing on doing with RoHS – namely linking RoHS much more closely with REACH (an EU regulation covering the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals). And, as the work of this project has pointed out, REACH is about substances, whereas RoHS covers a completely different aspect of the materials and products used in our industry.”

ITSA has passed the information gleaned from the work with this umbrella project onto its members who, in turn, have been able to share it with their parent companies.

2020 and beyond

Looking to the future Biggs added that ITSA obviously has the goal of increasing membership in order to help the association to grow and develop. However, he stressed that this should not be done purely off the back of companies becoming members in order to access its data.

“That’s clearly difficult to control,” he continued, “and it’s something we’ve experienced before in the association’s previous guises, but we really want members who are interested in supporting the association and to help us have more influence over what happens in the interconnect market in the UK - this includes lobbying the relevant government departments when it comes to things like specifications etc.”

The current ITSA membership represents around 22-24% of the UK connector market, however, Biggs has set a target of increasing that to around 30% by the end of 2020. “There are several technology companies who I’d really like to encourage into the group. Although we have a strong technology base across the current members, there are a few areas that we are falling short, for example, military circular connectors as we don’t have a member in that area.

“We ultimately want to become the recognised voice for the connector industry in the UK. The activities we’re involved in, the things we do, the influence we have, the areas which we are stepping into, and the data that we produce reflect very strongly what the connector industry in the UK is all about.”

ITSA the facts

Function

• Providing a forum in which members can discuss and exchange non-competitive information for the benefit and mutual success of its members and the industry.
• Hosting several meetings throughout the year attended by members and with invited external speaking guests.
• Providing quarterly statistics and commentary which provide a reliable prompt summary of the status of the UK connector market. ITSA’s statistics enable members to compare their own performance to that of their peer group. ITSA’s statistics are also used to help assess the market annually. Members use the assessment to review their own market development and strategy, and to review the quality of commercially available market reports.
• Allow members to share non-confidential data on market conditions and dynamics.
• Providing a forum for members to meet and exchange views on issues surrounding the industry. It is also an ideal opportunity to explore mutual business opportunities on key projects.
• Providing opportunities for networking, general discussion and market reviews which often lead to collaboration between member companies.
• To provide representation on BSI standards committees, RoHS compliance and exemption groups and therefore to acquire advanced information about possible proposed changes to established standards or the setting of new technical standards. This in turn enables the association to influence the setting of those standards.

Members

• Binder
• Cambion
• Carlisle
• Cliff
• Fischer
• Harwin
• Harting
• HUBER+SUHNER
• Interface
• Lemo
• Neutrik
• ODU
• Radiall
• Smiths
• Telegartner