Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1091269
26 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2019 tories and processes; that's going to become tougher and maybe even impossible post-Brex- it. We recently invested in the German facto- ry with more equipment because post-Brexit, it could become much harder to use the ca- pability in the U.K. to support our mainland European customers. Of course, the capabili- ty is still there and we could use it, but we can't count on being able to move the prod- uct quickly enough across borders to use it in a meaningful way. We've just installed anoth- er cutting machine in the German factory. We have also improved the capability to support military and aerospace customers that have a higher quality standard out of the German service center where previously we've cen- tered that business in the U.K. factory. Spe- cifically, we've improved the prepreg cutting cleanrooms in Germany and left space to in- stall additional prepreg cutting equipment as well, which we're thinking of for the middle of 2019 to give Germany the capability to grow and support the milaero sector without sup- port from our U.K. operation. People give me the argument, "You have all of this capacity. Why do you need it?" But it's not capacity; it's bandwidth and redundancy. We need to be able to deliver a lot of materi- al in a standard working day. If I run the U.K. factory 24 hours, seven days a week, I could cut everything the U.K. requires and probably half of what Europe requires in the one factory, but I need to be able to cut significant quantities with a high mix of product types and sizes with a lot of ma- chine setups within a work- ing day, and I need separate cutting lines for polyimide and epoxy prepreg products. I think the German market is heading the same way as the rest of Europe. They're going to keep the bigger fac- tories there with some larg- er volumes geared towards automotive, but they're also going to have more and more high-mix requirements, meaning faster reaction and more flexibility from suppliers. We are set up to do that. There's no point in having flexible manufacturing capability in Su- zhou, and then creating a bottleneck in flexi- bility in the supply chain in our overseas busi- ness units. The whole thing has to be con- structed to deliver high mix and smaller to me- dium volumes quickly and reliably within a short space of time with redundancy built in to ensure supply chain security. Nobody wants to hear, "My one saw broke down. I can't cut anything for you." Thus, we have two. While one gives us more than enough capacity to do everything, we still have two to ensure conti- nuity of supply. Matties: You have to have that redundancy to be a good provider. Goodwin: Absolutely. Matties: It sounds like a good strategy and time to be in business, and you have made a lot of bright moves here. Goodwin: I think so and hope so. We'll see. Matties: Thank you so much, Mark. Goodwin: No problem. Thanks for your visit. It was a pleasure showing you around. PCB007