PCB007 Magazine

PCB-Oct2015

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60 The PCB Magazine • October 2015 by Renato Peres circuiBraS circuiToS imPrESSoS ProFiSSionaiS By the '90s, Asia had become a great player on the electronics industry, driving companies all over the world, especially those in Europe and the Americas, to compete against its low prices. More recently, Asian manufacturers have been delivering more high-quality products to the market. These phenomena resulted in little space for mass production companies in West- ern countries and an increasing need for quick- turn production and prototypes of medium- to high-complexity PCBs. Printed circuit board shops have been driven to build new business strategies that overcome the paradigm of trade-offs, in which custom- ers had to choose between one characteristic or another, into a new way of doing business in which an equilibrium is found that meets cus- tomer needs. Having said that, flexibility has turned into a slogan for Western companies and despite be- ing largely spread in our culture, very few orga- nizations handle it effectively. The PCB MaraThon Why do some companies get outstanding results while others struggle to survive? Why do some always seem to be ahead of their time, while others are always running behind? Is it all about money? Certainly, money is a good portion of what is needed to achieve better results. Money buys new technology and helps develop highly skilled peo- ple. However, consider Toyota as an example from the '50s. They turned from a small company in a country destroyed by WWII into the most lucra- tive automaker in the world. They found a way to compete against economies of scale, huge amounts of money invested in new technology, skilled en- gineers, and low costs of production per unit, just to cite some of the challenges Toyota faced. In that scenario, reducing cycle time to produce better and faster was a live or die battle. Everything that followed those events has become part of the his- tory that is still being written by Toyota. The PCB market that Western companies face today has some similarities with the auto- motive market Toyota faced in the '50s, but a bit more challenging. All in all, the principles remain the same. FeATure

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