The military and aerospace business can be highly demanding. When the United States government releases funds for a major military or aerospace project, such as the AH-64 Apache Helicopter, a multi-mission combat aircraft, a tremendous venture arises virtually overnight, prompting the contracted manufacturers to scramble for the necessary parts.

As the only broadline electronics distributor in the United States dedicated solely to military and aerospace customers, Arrow/Zeus Electronics, a division of Arrow's North American Components (NAC) group, possesses the industry experience, depth of capabilities and breadth of suppliers to satisfy these urgent requirements.

Unique Within Arrow and the Industry
Arrow/Zeus has a national network of more than 100 sales representatives and ships more than 1,200 line items per day. Receiving support from NAC's supplier services asset and marketing teams, engineering and design service field application engineers (FAE) and the supply chain service managers, the Arrow/Zeus team focuses its efforts on providing superior service to a very unique customer base.

The demands placed on military/Hi-Rel devices are often very different from those assigned to commercial devices. “Military qualified parts must endure much more rigorous quality testing than ordinary commercial devices,” says Frank Stalzer, vice president and general manager, Arrow/Zeus. That's because Hi-Rel parts could end up in a variety of mission-critical U.S. military and aerospace applications that leave little room for error, including F-16 Fighting Falcons, Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) Missiles and M1 Abrams Battle Tanks. Stalzer adds, “From enhanced temperature ranges to minimized failure rates, Hi-Rel parts are held to stringent regulatory requirements.”

Because of the price difference between Hi-Rel & commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) parts, there has been more interest among customers in recent years to design-in COTS parts wherever possible. “We often see COTS parts being utilized within the military/aerospace customer base, however, they are typically designed-in on non-Hi-Rel applications, such as cockpit displays, or ground level secure communication units,” says Stalzer. “Hi-Rel component prices can be up to five-times as expensive as their COTS equivalents, and the cost savings can be very attractive to the end customer.”

The Industry Leader
Prior to the acquisition of Zeus Components, Inc. in 1993, Arrow's participation in the military and aerospace market was minimal. Today, Arrow/Zeus, with more than two-thirds of its business coming from the military sector and the remainder from aerospace, is considered the leading distributor of electronic components to the military and aerospace customer base. “Zeus has specialized in this business for more than 30 years,” says Stalzer.

One of Arrow/Zeus' unique customer advantages is its broad geographic presence. With eight locations across the United States, Arrow/Zeus has the ability to efficiently distribute parts to large customers with disparate manufacturing facilities, such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Boeing. “Zeus's national account managers serve as a liaison between the different locations and help manage inventory and procurement for the entire project, regardless of how many of the customer's U.S. locations are involved,” says Stalzer. “Our industry expertise and experience operating with limited customer information due to top secret project classifications makes us very appealing to military and aerospace customers.”

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