NECA Convention 2009 Seattle: The Blog

NECA recognized the contributions made to electrical contracting by the National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED) during yesterday’s Board of Governor’s meeting with the association’s 2009 Industry Partner Award.

NECA Industry Partner Award recognizes those organizations or individuals that, though not members of NECA, contribute to the electrical contracting industry’s success through their decisions, actions, or cooperation with NECA. Previous winners of the Industry Partner Award include the National Fire Protection Agency (1996), Graybar Electric Co. (2004), and University of Kansas professor and ELECTRI International researcher Thomas E. Glavinich (2007). The National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED) and NECA have worked together for more than a century to the mutual benefit of their respective members.

Electrical distributors are essential link between companies who make electrical products and the electrical contractors who put those products to use in projects worldwide. Beyond warehousing and selling electrical products, distributors provide extensive product knowledge, technical assistance, on-time delivery to facilitate productivity, market knowledge, and extend credit to end-users.

NAED is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to serving and protecting the electrical distribution channel. Much of its work centers on helping electrical distributors develop effective working relationships with their best customers. electrical contractors.

NECA and NAED joined forces in 2009 to fight the growing number of counterfeit electrical products making their way to the market. Since its inception, the Anti-Counterfeit Products Initiative, www.counterfeitscankill.com, has educated thousands of electrical professionals and the public on the dangers and liabilities counterfeit electrical products present. “We’re proud of this initiative with the potential to save lives, and we’re proud of our ongoing partnership with NAED,” said NECA CEO John Grau.

Grau wrote in a recent editorial in Construction Today, “We’re all in this together, and we all share a common goal of keeping buildings, their owners and their occupants safe. When your electrical contractor comes to you with a concern about product quality, hear him out. You could be saving liability, property and lives.”

ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR and The Electrical Distributor (TED) Magazine jointly sponsored an Electrical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Panel yesterday to discuss the widespread impact counterfeit electrical products are having throughout the industry.

“Call it counterfeiting, call it mislabeling, call it gray-market – but it’s all a crime,” said ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR publisher John Maisel. “It affects every part of the electrical products channel, from manufacturers to distributors to contractors, and especially, end-users.”

Panelists included Kevin Yates, VP Siemens Energy and automation, and Steve Litchfield, asst consul Schneider Electric-Square D, Bob Crane of Underwriters Laboratory, and Bill Feyman, VP Leed consul, Babcork Electric. They focused primarily on the liabilities presented by counterfeit products.

“The closer you are to the end of the supply chain, the more liability you have,” Yates said. “So the most liability potentially rests with the electrical contractors.”

Crane pointed out some warning signs to help contractors avoid fakes. “The terms ‘overstock’ or ‘only 50 left’ are often used to promote the sale of counterfeit products,” he said.

“In 1981, the counterfeit products were laughable,” Litchfield said. “You could tell right away that they were fakes and inferior products. But in 2004, the first products I saw from an unauthorized distributor – another tip-off that products may be counterfeit – you couldn’t tell the difference from the packaging. It was a circuit breaker, and the flaws were really frightening when we tested it.”

Panelists echoed the concern that counterfeit products are a concern for the entire electrical industry. Manufacturers have taken initiative in pursuing and suing counterfeiters, enlisting help from U.S. Customs. They’ve had to spearhead raids on plants in China. But with less than one percent of all imports coming the U.S. screened and the fact that counterfeiting is roughly a $250 billion annual business, “counterfeiting is a value proposition,” Yates said. “Bottom line, they stand to make a lot of money, and the chances of getting caught are slim.

“We have to take the initiative to protect our customers, our workers, and our brands,” he continued. “It’s going to take education to recognized counterfeits and government assistance to prosecute the criminals behind counterfeiting.”

ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR will release a special supplement to its December issue on the risks posed by counterfeit electrical products and what electrical contractors, site managers and other electrical industry professionals can do to protect themselves, their workers, and their customers.

What are your concerns about counterfeit electrical products? How much of an impact do you think it will have on the industry?