Understanding tooling and NRE charges can help buyers avoid redundant PCB manufacturing costs and improve supplier negotiations.

Purchasing bare printed circuit boards for an OEM or EMS firm often means losing money in places that aren’t immediately visible.

Vendors are shifting capacity from traditional PCB materials to advanced dielectrics. They should be increasing both.

I have some good news, and some bad news. (Spoiler alert: This should be a wake-up call to all companies that produce materials and supplies that go into printed circuit boards.)

Growing use of AI in design and inspection workflows introduces internal security risks, as improper tools may expose sensitive data and compromise compliance.

Security has become a major issue for the industry over the past couple decades. Long gone are the times when information could be shared without concern that it would be intercepted, copied or stolen during the course of “normal” operations. Communications technology has changed and evolved, and new threats have emerged. The regrettable result is that security is front-and-center of any company’s day-to-day concerns.

Understand the landed cost before turning procurement over to EMS.

A good EMS partner brings real value. It manages assembly labor, SMT placement, inspection, test, rework, box build, documentation, scheduling and production discipline. That is what it is paid to do. EMS companies exist because OEMs need manufacturing execution without necessarily running a factory. In the standard EMS model, the EMS may also handle procurement, supply chain coordination and material sourcing on behalf of the OEM. That is normal. It is also convenient.