Isabellenhütte Newsletter 
Q2/2020

Preface Newsletter

Dear Partners,
Dear Customers,

The spread of coronavirus is a disruptive factor, which has not been seen before in our entire business lives. It brought the largest economies and strongest industries to a halt with tremendous speed. Nobody is able to predict the duration of this situation nor the consequences for our business and personal lives. It would be fatalistic to think that life will be the same once we overcome the siege of Covid-19, but it would be great if we are in good shape after it’s all over.

We don’t know what the world after the coronavirus is going to look like, but what we know is that a clear focus on customers still remains just as important. This is what we are presenting in this edition of our newsletter: It includes new products which Isabellenhütte is going to launch soon as a response to the new market needs and how one of our partners set up a successful marketing campaign for it. Isabellenhütte is getting prepared to understand and make use of our customer’s journey to ensure a better customer orientation, which includes sampling new products as well as a product launch package as a choice of improved touchpoints for you as distribution partner. In addition, we want to highlight a major success with our CMx series against one of our strongest competitors, which you’re invited to copy where possible in the market.

Finally, I would like to highlight that already more than 100k FMx samples were ordered based on the FMx sales campaign. Please feel free to ask for samples if you did not order them until now.

I hope you find some time to read this newsletter. It’s all about Isabellenhütte’s efforts to be ahead of the competition and make you more successful with us.

I’m looking forward to seeing you in the near future.

Stay healthy!
Yours faithfully,

Anton Roth
Global Sales Director Components


WAx Series - New products made from roll cladding pre-material

New amplifiers make it possible to use low resistance values to measure current in many applications. This has two effects; one is to minimize the generated power loss and the second is to measure a higher current with space-saving parts. We recognized a growing demand for such components; small, very low values and relatively high rated power.


Isabellenhütte has closed a gap in our portfolio with this type of resistor in package sizes 1213, 2010 and 1206. This will be an extension to ISA-WELD® products and the new FMX series in terms of small size with lower values.


Why parts from a new manufacturing process?
It started with a new requirement for an EV-Inverter power module where our customer needed a 0.5 mOhm part in addition to BVF-V-R001-1.0 (size 1213). The new pre-material is well suited for these types of resistors, so we took this opportunity and introduced the first roll cladding resistor called WAF-Z-R0005-1.0 as a solution.
Additional resistance ranges of the 1213 (WAF) and 1206 (WAK) and 2010 (WAP) are in the planning stage. Planned products see figure 1.

The technical process of roll cladding
Copper and one of our alloys are roll cladded into strip material which is groove milled. Resistors will be punched out of this strip material much like the ISA-WELD® process, but with a multiple tool, with 9 pcs per stroke.
So, the only major difference to ISA-WELD® parts is the manufacturing process of the strip-material. See figure 2 and 3.

WAF
A preliminary version of the WAF datasheet is already available.
C-Samples of WAF-Z-R0005-1 and WAF-M-R001-1.0 are already available.

WAK Size 1206
BVK gives way to WAK low ohmic values in 1206 size. See figure 4.
Small parts, means small strip material; this material is very difficult to weld, so we changed the production technology to roll cladding.

WAK-Z-R0005-1.0
WAK-M-R001-1.0 

All sample and product availabilities can be found in figure 5.

Thomas Otto
Head of Technical Competence Center

 


CMP for engine ECU - what matters to the customer besides the price

In the development of a new generation of engine ECUs, the customer had the goal of reducing the size of the circuit board while increasing the circuit scale with greater functionality.

Since the customer has used shunts from domestic manufacturers for generations, we have decided to propose a CMP 2W shunt resistor.
We were able to make attractive proposals in terms of price, but there was one issue.
Looking at our CMP data sheet, it didn’t meet the power rating requirement.

The maximum load assumed by the customer was 1 W at the product terminal temperature of 140°C.
From the CMP datasheet, when the terminal temperature exceeds 70°C, the performance of the internal thermal resistance (Rthi) is dominant, and the maximum load power capability decreases as the temperature increases.
The maximum power at terminal temperature 140°C is 0.6 W.

However, CMP is a resistor that widely covers 10 m to 500 mΩ with the same size.
The power generated by the resistance value changes, so the load power of 10 mΩ should be different from the load power of 500 mΩ. (In ISA-WELD®, it is specified for each resistance value.)
The customer uses 10 mOhm, and we checked exact Rthi performance of CMP 10 mOhm and confirmed it has sufficient margin in Rthi value that can be guaranteed.
As a result, it was confirmed that it could withstand 1W use at 140°C, and passed the R&D evaluation.

We also have been proposing the CMx series in the previous ECU model, and we had already finished evaluating the withstand performance for solder cracks with the customer's advanced development team.
This was one of the reasons for their decision to use the CMP.

Our customer is facing the trend of integrating functions into one unit and a smaller size and the CMP can meet the demand of a small size component while maintaining a high power density.

Genya Yatsu
Sales Manager Japan


FMx Online Promotion with Sekorm – Call for Action

On March 2nd 2020, Sekorm, one of Isabellenhütte´s China’s strongest distributors with an online platform, launched a campaign for the new product series FMx online. This campaign was completed on April 1st 2020.

How it worked:
1.Promotion banner on Sekorm’s home page
2.Web links to read, learn and download about FMx product information, option to submit questionnaire
3.Answer the questionnaire regarding FMx as well as availability of information on projects highlighting the application of FMx.
4.Option to receive free samples from Sekorm.

Promotion channels:
5.Sekorm homepage, SEO
6.Isabellenhütte WeChat channel

The key purpose of this promotion was for Sekorm to identify potential customers with interest in FMx for their projects and to gain further insights into market demand, both supported by a questionnaire provided to potential clients. Detailed information provided through the questionnaire will result in a more valuable analysis of FMx opportunities.

Result of campaign:
Open rates: 3,000 times opened / 1,200 people
Download rate: FMK 200 / FMP 100 / FMS 100
Questionnaire answer rate: 500+ people

Campaign reference:

www.sekorm.com/doing/enroll/19762567.html

Yvonne Xu
Marketing Manager China


Touchpoint Analysis and Customer Journeys - Planned Improvements

Based on the persona analysis in the previous year, during recent weeks we investigated the most important touchpoints of our customers, including you as distribution partner. The benefit for you is a better targeted service provided by Isabellenhütte regarding sales promotion and support.

Basically, customer journeys define all phases and touchpoints customers pass through before they decide to buy products and also includes the most important phases of a customer relationship. Touchpoints regarding the brand, product and services are considered. Your feedback has been taken into account because we have been discussing your needs in several workshops with colleagues who are responsible for you from various departments and also considered your feedback from previous distribution meetings.

During the coming weeks we will be working on detailed suggestions for improvement and on an implementation plan to be permuted on short notice and long-term.

Major findings regarding your needs for sales planning and promotion:

- strategic product roadmaps
- product launch packages including samples, product explanation videos, 3D illustrations, product pictures
- availability plan for samples and kind of samples
- constant supply of valuable content e.g. application notes for new products and new applications for well-known products, success stories
- simplification regarding project/opportunity reporting and alignment with us
- easier access to product datasheets, certificates and contacts on our webpage
- RMA process for distributors
- service portal

After our internal alignment, we will inform you about the implementation plan and would like you to vote on the priority of topics.
If there are questions or suggestions for improvement in the meantime, please feel free to contact me.

Corinna Roth
Marketing Manager Headquarter