Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1111672
46 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2019 competition is just merciless these days. There are so many people out there trying to do the exact same thing. Another concern is IP theft. When you design something, you get it built. Six months later, somebody has an identical product for half the price. We can no longer assume anything in manufacturing. When I say Screaming Circuits takes a six- to eight-week quote order and NPI process and does it in six to eight hours, that's the reality for half of our customers. And half of those aren't prototypes; half of those are going directly to an end product that's going to be sold, sent up to work on the Hubble space telescope, or put on the Mars 2020 Rover. There are weeks of double checks that our customers simply don't have anymore, and we were either lucky or had a lot of foresight when we originally designed our systems to be so flexible. We didn't design our systems around what it takes to build something; we designed them around what an engineer would face. So, every single job is re-engineered from the start. We re-engineer our entire process for every single job, and while that seems oppres- sive, it works in today's world, and it's proba- bly going to be the only thing that works going into the future. A good portion of our custom- ers are very intelligent, well-educated design engineers who were never taught how to lay out a board. Johnson: With customer requirements and needs changing, are you also seeing opportu- nity in some new business sectors? Benson: It's really more in the new world than new business. Milwaukee Electronics started Screaming Circuits in 2003 because they saw that changes starting to happen in the manufac - turing world and they needed to be there. We purchased our San Diego PCB layout division a few years ago because we felt like our cus- tomers needed that particular service. So, we have done some acquisition and internal start- ups, and Screaming Circuits is the leading edge. Johnson: And that helps the business. Benson: Absolutely. We have grown every year that I've been there, except for the bad reces- sion year from 2008–2009 despite how difficult the environment has been for manufacturing over the last few decades. Johnson: Great. Thank you very much, Duane. Benson: You're very welcome. Thank you. SMT007 Milwaukee Electronics Tecate, B.C., Mexico.