FLEX007

Flex-Apr2018

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60 FLEX007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2018 rigid-flex, it's a little different model. So we'll see. It's kind of new, so we'll go with it and play with it for a while and see where it takes us. It's exciting—super busy. We had already completely filled our capacity for Q1 in the first two weeks of selling it. That tells me the inter- est is very high. Shaughnessy: That's good. So what's the big hole in your capabilities now? Robinson: We don't really have one. My sales guys love to tell me it would be nice to find a low-cost solution. You know, a really com- petitive low-cost solution. I'm not sure that's feasible anymore, in North America at least, to try to have that operation that can still sus- tain itself. There is still a significant need out there for 2-, 4-, 6-, and 8-layer low-tech stuff that is low- cost competitive. That's what the Advanced Circuits of the world have captured. They own that. Some of the Internet-based model businesses have that and they are thriv- ing on it, and I think you've got to allow them to be in that space. I don't think that is going to change. We consider our global business a program management business, not a cost-driven busi- ness. But more people come to us to manage the recipe and manage the program. I think that will be my next focus area—to try to expand that and align that with more of the demand we are seeing. We've added some distribution in central U.S. so we can support the United States with it. It's a fun model to work with, because its capacity has no limits. So it's really the right program and the right customer part- nerships that really look to us for the NPI and the recipe and manage the program for them. As far as technologies, it's the same. You know, I think we've gone beyond the stan- dard PCB manufacturing techniques. We have everything that you can do it with now, with the additive I think will be our biggest thing we will look to improve. That process is prob- ably the newest emerging. If you're going to get down to 10 to 15 microns trace and space, we've got to get creative with that. I think that's probably what we are going to focus on in a limited basis now. Then the other aspect is the cycle time, to continue to focus on reducing our cycle times where we can do multiple lamination cycles. We are currently building three to four lamination cycle products in five to six days. That's from 10 to 12 two years ago, so we have really reduced that cycle time and the demand out there for that. Reducing cost and reducing cycle times of the advanced technol- ogy I think is one of my big focuses for 2018 along with the additive. I think that is something my engineer- ing team is going to have to come to me with. Con- necticut is already embrac- ing the thermal conductive materials, so we are prob- ably going to roll that out in that operation. We have a significant automotive and light- ing business out of that facility already, so it makes sense for that site to do it. And you know, other than that, you work on the cul- ture and the integration of the new families we now have in Southern California. We'll be bringing them up to speed with the way ACPT does business and what is important to us, and how we focus on our customers. We want to enhance the culture at the new facilities and capitalize on them, and do some of the things always necessary early in the process of an acquisition. Shaughnessy: Very good. Is there anything else you want to talk about? Robinson: I think that's it. We'll talk again, I'm sure. Thanks for the opportunity. Shaughnessy: Thank you, Steve. Great talking to you. FLEX007

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