Printed circuit boards have become a top-management issue in many procurement departments. A Handelsblatt article of October 26 describes what is behind it. According to Zollner Elektronik, Europe’s largest EMS provider, material costs rose by around 70 percent between November 2025 and August 2026. Lead times for FR-4 have tripled, quotes are often valid only briefly, and some manufacturers no longer give prices for pure costing requests at all. Large buyers are securing the output of entire factories in Asia years ahead, which leaves less for European industrial electronics. Sonja Wiedemann of Sensor-Technik Wiedemann draws the conclusion: availability now matters more than price.
For every company that builds electronics into its products, this raises a question the purchase price cannot answer: if your PCB supplier has to allocate capacity tomorrow, where do you stand on its customer list?
To find out, we developed the PCB Resilience Check. It has 13 questions and takes about five minutes. You enter no names, prices, or quantities. The result appears immediately, with no registration: four dimensions, three observations, two levers, and one question for your next team conversation, plus a PDF to take with you. The check runs entirely in your browser. Your answers are neither stored nor transmitted to us or to third parties.
The check does not replace an analysis of your situation. It shows where to start. If you want to talk through your result, you can book 30 minutes with Hrvoje Zaric and Lars Bening directly from the result page.
Start the PCB Resilience Check (also available in German). You can find more about our work for the industry on the PCB & Semiconductors page.
Source: Handelsblatt, October 26, 2026 (in German, behind a paywall)
