Aug 10. Connector-assembly specialist introduces online shopping. PEI-Genesis, the franchised connector-assembly specialist, has carried out a major upgrade of its website and introduced a personalisation facility called MyPEI, which not only enables customers to shop online but also gives them access to a host of additional features. Since PEI-Genesis holds its inventory as component parts and assembles connectors to order, the company needed to be able to present customers with a real-time list of the finished products that can be built from those components and then integrate that into its back-end systems.
“This level of integration required a huge investment of time and money,” said Russ Dorwart, President and COO of PEI-Genesis. “But we have accomplished it, and MyPEI now offers customers over 3 million connectors that we can build and ship within 48 hours.”
The company carries a massive $60m inventory of component parts from leading manufacturers such as Amphenol, ITT Interconnect Solutions (Cannon and VEAM), Glenair and Polamco.
Using the ‘Part # Search’ field at the top of every page, customers can view detailed technical information and product availability for a particular connector part number. Connector comparison charts are available to help customers select the right product for their application, and PEI-Genesis also has a specialist engineering team on hand to provide further advice if needed. When logged into MyPEI, individuals can buy connectors online using either a credit card or their company’s trade account. In addition, MyPEI enables customers to view orders, track shipments, see over ten years of purchase history, print or e-mail invoice copies, check contract pricing, request special quotations and even ask technical questions.
“The expanded and updated content has increased the website from a few hundred pages to nearly 300,000,” commented Dorwart. “This is a huge step forward for PEI-Genesis, and I fully expect that at least 10% of our orders will be coming through MyPEI within two years.”
Customers can register and log into MyPEI by clicking on the ‘MyPEI Login’ tab at www.peigenesis.com.
12 Aug 10. Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/411474/canada_defence_and) has announced the addition of the “Canada Defence and Security Report Q3 2010” report to their offering. This Canada Defence and Security Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, defence and security associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Canada’s defence and security industry. In early May 2010, the President of Canada’s Treasury Board, Stockwell Day, announced that 13 departments and agencies, including the Department of National Defence, had been asked to save CAD1.7bn out of the combined CAD35bn they spend a year, following the latest government spending review to reduce the country’s deficit. These savings would amount to around 5% per department. Nevertheless, in June the government announced a massive CAD35bn shipbuilding programme for the country’s navy and coast guard, chiefly to replace ageing destroyers and supply ships, following several years when the navy has been forced by increasing costs to postpone these replacements. The first ships will be built at two shipyards by 2012 or 2013, with the total number intended to supply 28 large ships and 100 smaller ships. Also, the government is to enter negotiations with Lockheed Martin to buy 65 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets on a sole-source contract worth CAD9bn, to replace to replace the air force’s ageing CF-18 fighters. Also in June, a new R&D consortium was announced jointly by Boeing and Canadian industry partners, which intends to reinforce Canada’s competitiveness in advanced composite materials manufacturing, primarily for aerospace. In June 2010, the controversial results of a public inquiry were published, which investi