Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1111672
54 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2019 that's going to be in the market several years out. In that sense, we're always looking for ways to improve or develop ourselves. Aside from technology, the areas in which we're looking to grow or provide more support to include design services, back-end system assembly tests, and direct order fulfillment. We want to focus on those areas of the value chain where customers don't commonly see us as a core solution provider. We want to mar- ket better and make the customers more aware of the fact that we're very capable and able to take that headache off their hands and manage it for them. Johnson: What are the factors that might be inhibiting you in your growth right now? Garcia: Good question. Well, there's some uncertainty regarding our global climate. What are the tariffs doing in China, for instance, and what's going on in Europe? It's not necessar- ily stunting our growth, but there's some inse- curity from the general customer base whether they continue to push for low-cost regions like China, for example. Or do they try to find a way to keep business in the United States? What's the impact for them either way? A lot of customers who were manufacturing in China started to move to Mexico; we saw that influx, and then capacity in Mexico started to get tight, and pricing started to rise. I'm also hearing that in some cases, customers are find- ing workarounds to the tariffs, which we all anticipated would happen. There's just a lot of uncertainty, whereas if it was hard and fast one way or another, customers could make deci- sions on whether or not to keep stuff local, in the United States, or aggressively look at other low-cost solutions. Johnson: How about human resources? Are you finding the hires you need? Garcia: In one sense, for our direct labor work- force, there's a very dense population of EMS companies in and around the Bay Area. The talent pool here is strong, so I don't think we will have challenges growing as our busi- ness grows and we have a need to add direct labor team members. I am seeing a little bit of a challenge with some of the indirect hires. On the procurement side, what we do is very dynamic. In some cases, we're almost buy- ing as we're quoting. It takes a special kind of person to respond very quickly to customer demands, put some thought into it based on their experience, and make the right decision so that we receive the right parts at the right time and don't suffer through unwanted excess material. For other indirect positions, we are competing with the "who's who" in Silicon Valley, so it can be challenging to recruit the right talent, but we have built a strong team. And we do a good job of utilizing our people networks to bring in the best people. Johnson: I would guess that you're looking for the right kind of front-end engineering staff as well to continue your growth. Garcia: Yes, we have a solid engineering team and are looking for a senior engineer to add to the team right now. We're probably going to need somebody on the system assembly side as that business starts to grow. We have people that are system engineers, but we'll need other team members added to that group as business warrants. Johnson: Well, thank you for your time. Garcia: Very good. Thanks. SMT007 Green Circuits' Silicon Valley Research Center.