Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/536970
32 The PCB Magazine • July 2015 everybody who was an engineer or technician. It is good business practice but it was like DEF- CON 4, the highest sense of urgency. This was on top of everyone's list—no matter what you did when you come in today, here are the top two or three things you need to work on. We really stressed that mindset every week making sure we were fo- cused on all the right things. There are a lot of common challenges that happen in our industry that you have to overcome. You have to make sure all your suppliers are ready to go. There were some issues with copper availability for a short period of time, and we had a lot of pressure on our copper suppliers to deliver copper. We weren't the only ones suffering from copper shortages; it was across the in- dustry—you mentioned some names earlier of other lami- nate suppliers having the same problems. We had to press that supply base really hard, too. In Q3 of last year, copper was probably at the tightest with supply it has been in recent times. Now we have some additional sources of copper for our materials, so we have flexibility that we didn't have before. From a raw materials standpoint, we are in really good shape going forward. It did press us into making some pretty tough deci- sions with some suppliers, as far as getting them moving with us in support of our customers. Matties: You have your own supply lines issues. Pavlak: The focus was from the suppliers all the way through the factories. We started at the fac- tory level and said, "Let's look at what we can control and what we can push," and then we worked our way up to the supply base and made sure that we were good there. We also introduced a slightly different con- cept into the operation called SMART plan- ning. It's a rigorous S&OP process and we were able to utilize that process to drive more out- put through the plant without sacrificing qual- ity. We took a much finer and granular look at our demand and who it's for and when it was needed, so we peeled back the onion on a lot of things and started looking at the demand data more closely to make sure we are taking care of our customers in a balanced manner. This improved S&OP process has created more rigor in our global operation —in how we plan, how we execute the produc- tion schedule—and that rigor is still there and improving every monthly planning cy- cle. It took us internally to an- other level of performance on how we work with our plants in the different regions, how we look at customer demand, prioritizing orders, and things of that nature. We have a lot better system now than we did before. Matties: Your strategy has re- ally been reaching into the OEM and getting spec'd at that level, not necessarily focused on selling to circuit fabricators, per se. It sounds like once these OEMs have spec'd you in, they don't want to go through another process of bringing in somebody else to replace it. They've been pretty patient with the delays and the delivery times. Pavlak: Actually, we have been working very closely with both OEMs and fabricators in se- lecting the best materials for particular ap- plications and then supplying to them timely through our global manufacturing and supply chain network. Yes, our customers including OEMs and fabricators are very patient with us, but primarily because we have been working very closely with them on material selection, technical support, new products promotion, and various measures we have taken to im- prove the supply situation. I think the fact that we are spec'd in helped us through that period of time, and we spent a lot of time with those customers and the fabricators to make sure they understood that there was an end to this and we have an aggressive plan coming to fruition; AN UPDATE ON THE ROGERS MATERIAL SUPPLy LINE continues Feature the focus was from the suppliers all the way through the factories. We started at the factory level and said, "let's look at what we can control and what we can push," and then we worked our way up to the supply base and made sure that we were good there. " "