Zentech’s John Vaughan, VP of Sales and Marketing, is also a columnist for the I-Connect 007 family of publications (PCB007, MilAero007, SMT 007) and his column “MilAero Markets” is featured this month in SMT007.
Entitled, The Fourth Pillar of Defense Acquisition: Cybersecurity, his column provides an in-depth analysis of the cybersecurity requirements landscape within the DoD contracting environment and the impact of recent developments on PCB and EMS providers to the DoD.
If you are a provider of PCBs and/or electronics manufacturing services to the Department of Defense (DoD) and their prime contractors, you have no doubt noticed a significant increase in the number of Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) flow-downs, scrutiny of your data management, audits of your cybersecurity processes, and inquiries into the status of your compliance with a variety of cybersecurity initiatives.
Quoting John from the column, “We have clearly entered a paradigm shift, with cybersecurity now joining cost, schedule, and performance as the Fourth Pillar of Defense Acquisition.”
A key takeaway is that all PCB fabricators and electronics manufacturing service providers providing electronics products to the defense sector need to immediately heighten awareness and proactively address cybersecurity if they desire to continue supporting the DoD and their prime contractors.
About Zentech:
Zentech Manufacturing, Inc. is a privately held, engineering-driven contract manufacturer specializing in the design and manufacture of highly-complex electronic and RF circuit cards and assemblies. The company is headquartered in its purpose-built facility located in Baltimore, MD, with additional operations in Fredericksburg, VA. Zentech maintains several key certifications, including ISO 9001:2015, ITAR (US State Dept.), AS9100 (aerospace) and ISO 13485 (medical). In addition, Zentech is a certified IPC 610 Trusted Source supplier for Class 3 mission-critical electronics, and the company is IPC J-STD-001 Space Addendum QML certified and is now NIST 800-171 compliant. Zentech Fredericksburg operations is also a Mid-Atlantic leader in the fabrication of wire harnesses and over-molded cables for harsh environments.