Features Articles
Ten steps for achieving good design for excellence.
The dwindling number of large, all-in-one companies belies the abundance of blooming small ones.
Still inspired by the session on the “The Future of PCB Engineers” from PCB West last fall, I spent my early December poring over courses at universities across the US, looking for signs of printed circuit board instruction. I’m happy to say it was a fruitful exercise.
Speaking, as we were last month, about roadmaps, their role, who uses them and how, I call your attention to the retrospective that begins on page 27 of this month’s issue. It’s a reflection of the early days of the IPC Roadmap, which was published some 25 years ago.
As with our other year-end retrospectives on the introduction of RoHS and its effective ban on leaded solder and the launch of the IPC Designers Council, we wanted to capture the recollections of those who were on the front lines of the project. (A sad omission: Dieter Bergman, the project’s biggest champion and perhaps the one person most responsible for the first couple iterations, passed away in 2014. I still miss you, Big Guy.)
In 1993, of course, the electronics supply chain was a very different animal. Outsourcing wasn’t new, but it hadn’t taken hold in all corners, especially assembly. AT&T, IBM, H-P, Texas Instruments and Digital Equipment were among the leaders in vertical manufacturing. Many technologies accepted as routine today (SMT and HDI among them) were still finding their way – or hadn’t even made it off the drawing board.
Your most valuable asset may be the ability to access critical information in real-time.
“What’s your company’s most valuable asset?”
It’s a question asked by customers and investors for years, perhaps decades. Yet, regardless of who is asking, or why, it always sounds like a trick question. I wonder, however, whether it is the question, or the ever-changing answer, that really is the trick!
The typical response is “our employees” or “our facility” or maybe “our customers.” All credible and understandable responses. But value, like technology, is a fickle metric.
At a recent industry event, I was looking for equipment and materials that might be valuable additions to my company’s capabilities and assets. Various mini technical presentations were on the show floor. Each lasted only a few minutes and covered everything from esoteric theory to what seemed to me at least micro-minutia on a very specific topic. Caught in foot traffic at the intersection of several booths, I paused just long enough to catch one session that was, indeed, more than thought-provoking. That presentation was on a topic I had previously little interest in, let alone understanding of: data.
Calculating costs to move physical gear is much simpler than predicting inefficiencies of new locales.
As I write this, a trade deal with China that will eliminate the tariffs appears to be in development, but China is continuing to talk tough. The tariffs are causing significant pain to manufacturers in both the US and China, so I suspect some type of deal will happen eventually. In the meantime, the tariffs motivated many companies to look hard at the geographies involved in their outsourcing strategy. Some OEMs have moved or are in the process of moving some of their business, and a much larger number are thinking about it. I think it is important to carefully weigh the pros and cons.
The potential benefits of moving include:
- Unit price decreases related to moving to a lower-cost labor market.
- Elimination of tariff liability on all or part of the product.
- Cost reductions related to moving projects to better-fit regions.
Press Releases
- KYZEN Announces Exclusive Partnership with Manufacturers’ Representative Restronics Florida
- Koh Young will Showcase its Award-winning Inspection Solutions at SMTconnect with SmartRep in Hall 4A.225 on 11-13 June 2024 in Nuremberg, Germany
- Precision Automation & Assembly Appointed as New England Rep for Kubler US
- Precision Automation & Assembly Appointed as New England Rep for Kubler US