Uma Pingali, Business President

In today’s competitive environment, the mushrooming customer base and increased penetration of digitization has opened avenues for the growth of value-added electronic component distributors. One such distributor is element14 (a child of global technology leader Premier Farnell), that not just renders technology products, but also bestows services & solutions for research & development, electronic system design, maintenance and repair. The company supports a broad range of customer base, from hobbyists to engineers, maintenance engineers and buyers as ‘The Development Distributor’. “Being ‘the Development Distributor’ is about the support we offer to makers, teachers and students, all the way through to design and maintenance engineers, to help them develop themselves and others, their products and their businesses,” professes Uma Pingali, Business President, element14.

This high-service distributor is a prime mover in Raspberry Pi (GraspIO Cloudio), AI (Ultra96 Development Board) & IoT products & technologies, embedded boards and electronic components (Human Vision Component) where in these

solutions empower makers to transform their ideas into commercial products. In fact, element14’s new technologies are shaping & changing the way things are being looked at, enabling design engineers to build powerful solutions based on real world problems, using best-in-class components available. For instance, a small display screen at railway station showcasing train arrival & departure timings is designed by element14 on Raspberry Pi. Such small innovations are a regular way of life for element14 customers.

Offering Cutting-Edge Solutions
element14 supports everything that goes-on around the design process, both technical and commercial. Its design & manufacturing services enable engineers to develop the best product by providing support at every stage of design & manufacturing process and guiding on cost optimisation, volume production, certifications and compliance testing, all of which lead to a quicker time to market. Furthermore, clients are benefitted from the extensive experience of the Avnet group in the development and manufacture of products, where Avnet’s unique ecosystem enables them to work with lesser number of suppliers, reducing hand-offs from company to company and ensuring consistency of knowledge throughout the design process. In fact, Avnet access facilitates consumers to work with one partner for its entire production (even high volume), while saving their time & money. “At element14, we have developed services to meet the needs of both startups and professional makers who have great ideas and are passionate about the products/ideas they are

developing, but who may not necessarily have the in-house skills or resources to design, manufacture, distribute and promote their products,” adds Uma.

The company that supports customers in bringing their products into market, decks its distribution system with modular solutions (ready to be embedded into a product to reduce design times) and faster delivery and reinforces flexible design process. Apart from maintaining products in stock in warehouses, element14 upholds long-standing agreements with global companies in order to prioritize shipments and reduce delivery time. The venture is continuously expanding and automating its warehouses to offer a seamless experience and stay ahead of time.

On the other hand, to keep-up with recent market changes, element14 designs dedicated online resources which provide design engineers comprehensive support at all stages of their journey and takes developers through four main knowledge areas – research, design, prototype and test. The hub provides a curated set of articles, application notes, white papers and links to community content that create a starting point for the research process. With multiple offices countrywide, element14 envisions to strengthen its position in India as a trusted one-stop-source of engineering knowledge and solutions for design & innovation. With the launch of its AI resource (to help engineers access the tools/technologies and embrace AI within their design process),element14 aims to expand product range in this area.