Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1091269
MARCH 2019 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 19 erating. I think it's going to become increasing- ly important in general, and specifically in the automotive, aerospace, and medical sectors. Automotive is a sector you will see some fairly strong activity in from Ventec in 2019. We are already well established in the aerospace busi- ness. We control our own supply chain, en- suring there's no opportunity for product sub- stitutions, mix-ups, or counterfeits. In tradi- tional supply chains with third-party distrib- utors, things can happen. I'm sure there are some deliberate things that go on, but mostly the things that can happen aren't deliberate. But the fact is you can't end up with somebody else's product in the Ventec supply chain be- Matties: One of the advantages that Ventec en- joys is the distribution network that's built in. Talk a little bit about that. Goodwin: For me, it's all about customer inti- macy. We know our customers very well. We're really close to our customers, and increasingly so with our OEM activity; we're close to our customers' customers as well. That is impor - tant with the new products—signal integrity, tec-speed 20.0 for 5G applications, etc.—it's an OEM sell, so we're gaining some traction there. It will take some time because we're coming up against well-established competitors, but we have a drop-in product with tec-speed 20.0. In my opinion, it will come; something will give. Everybody told me we'd never get established in the polyimide business, but look where we are now; we're the market leader in Europe and the world leaders in terms of product quality. We make very clean laminates and prepregs, and you've seen some state-of-the-art equip- ment today walking around the factory includ- ing specialist filtration and a high degree of automated optical inspection on our prepreg treaters. They find and catch any inclusions before pressing laminates, but it is also part of a feedback loop driving the quality and the cleanliness of the product forward and making it better. That's the more important part. Matties: It's the feedback loop? Goodwin: Correct. We have an industrial pro- cess. There is a risk inherent in the process of putting some inclusions into the prepreg from raw materials and processes. The first thing is to catch it. Then, you have to improve it and make less to catch, but catch what you do make. Ventec has fewer inclusions than its competitors, and that's the AOI feedback loop in action, which is critical to continuous im- provement and has also driven our end-user space qualifications in Europe. Matties: It's about quality, price, and delivery. Goodwin: Supply chain integrity is another big thing in some of the markets where we're op- Thermal impedance tester.