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AUGUST 2019 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 75 side the U.S. with military manufacturing ca- pability, in 2003, Europe led with 11% and in 2018, Canada leads with 9%. Today, Europe has dropped to 5%. In the U.S. today, the state with the most MIL-PRF-31032 certified com- pany locations is, not surprisingly, California with 19 (34%) as shown in Figure 3. Note: I do not have state-by-state data for 2003. Overall there have been no significant global location distribution changes of certified sites in the last 15 years. However, in 2003, only 15% (19 of 130) were certified to MIL-PRF-31032, and today, that percentage is 80% (52 of 65) as shown in Figure 4. What Could Have Caused the Reduction in Certified Companies? The reasons could be related to many factors, such as: 1. A decline in the total military market 2. The cost of certification 3. The number of military boards now built to industry standards (IPC-6012 and 6018) 4. A reduction of profit margin on military specification boards 5. Consolidation of the PWB industry 6. The general loss of US PWB manufacturing sites. In Part 2 of this column series, I will provide an overview of each. An in-depth analysis of these factors will be left up to an expert in each market segment. PCB007 Mike Hill is president of MIL-Q-Consulting LLC. He has been in the PWB fabrication industry for over 40 years. During that time, he participated in specification writing for both IPC and the military. Past employers include ViaSystems, Colonial Circuits, and DDi. Figure 4: Percent of all qualified sites for MIL-PRF-31032 (2003 vs. 2018). Figure 3: Percent of total sites military-certified to MIL-PRF-31032 (2003 vs. 2018).