DistiStock is a business intelligence, research and validation application for Windows-based PC's that is dedicated to the electronic components industry. Its user base consists of electronics engineers, circuit designers, technicians, purchasing agents at various levels in the industry and students. DistiStock is used to simplify the laborious process of searching for comprehensive and detailed information about board-level electronic parts and present the information to the user in a manner that's easy to understand and assimilate.
International in scope
editOne of the noteworthy aspects of DistiStock is that it is international in scope. This makes it effective in addressing the problems that have arisen in semiconductor manufacturing since the March 11, 2011 earthquake in Japan, namely plant closures [1] and the opportunistic counterfeiting that resulted. Its global focus means that users can find information about parts from authorized sources around the world. When local or regional distributors are sold out of a given part, the part may or may not be published on the distributor's web site. If the part itself is not published neither is the information about it. Having access to a global market gives the user a more consistent path to the information and products, even when not available locally.
Authorized distributors only
editDistStock only contacts authorized distributors for information to ensure authenticity. Countefeit components emerged well before the Japan earthquake.[2] However, the resulting shortages in the post-earthquake period provided an opportunity for the less-than-ethical segments of the electronics industry to capitalize on the difficulty of finding parts and disseminate substandard products. Even NASA, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army were not immune to the proliferation of this problem.[3] By limiting the distributors that are queried to authorized distributors only, the information is accurate and reliable because it originates from the manufacturers that have authorized those distributors to publish the information in the first place.
History
editSmart Data Works,[4] the publisher of DistiStock, began development of DistiStock in early 2007. Initially it was developed as a traditional web application. In 2010 it became clear to the developers of DistiStock that a web application has drawbacks:
- A centralized web server can quickly become overloaded due to demands on the CPU and memory
- The web server requires very high bandwidth connections
- A centralized server is vulnerable to hacking and hijacking, for example through denial of service attacks
In early 2010, the development team addressed these concerns by redesigning DistiStock. A new approach was implemented that shifted the load to the users' machines. The need for a centralized web server was eliminated, effectively putting a search engine on the user's computer. The new design strategy proved superior in terms of performance, speed and overall user experience. DistiStock was released to the general electronics professionals market in April 2012.
Pages
editWhen DistiStock is first loaded it appears with a text box for entering part numbers and a search button to begin searching. Users of web search engines will easily recognize the layout. Upon entering a part number and clicking the search button, the application contacts the distributors in real-time and presents the information as it arrives.
Two main pages that are used to present the information:
- Results
- Summary
Results
The Results page is used to display the information as it would appear on a distributor's web site. This allows the user to see photos of the parts and other relevant information
as well as providing useful links.
Summary
The Summary page tabulates the information into a filterable and sortable interactive table. This allows for easy identification and/or comparison
of important details.
There are other pages which can be accessed by clicking the index tab buttons across the top of the application.
Search
This is the first page the user sees when opening the application. It can be used at any time for initiating a search, but the
Results and Summary pages also allow the user to do so.
Export to Excel
This page is used to export the information shown in the summary page, in XLS or CSV format. It provides a means of saving
the results of a search for future reference or further electronic processing.
Log The Log page keeps track of the part numbers that a user has searched along with the date and time of the search.
Preferences The Preferences page allows the user to set options like the number of weeks of factory lead time that are acceptable before highlighting the lead time in red, which distributors to contact and the general color theme of the application.
References
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