Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1111672
MAY 2019 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 73 of a large system with multiple field-program- mable gate arrays (FPGAs). The project was shelved and another department was trying to revive it. Their original designers had left the company, and the company was going through turmoil. The marketing team wanted to revive that product and engineering was not willing to support it, so the marketing team came to us, asking, "Can you revive the project? We only have a few weeks before we take the sys- tem to our customer for a demonstration." We were reluctant, but the customer really pushed that they needed help, and asked, "Can you please put a lot of resources to try to revive it?" We took the project and tried to put a lot of resources toward it, but their internal engi- neering team had not bought into that effort, so there was no support to revive what had been done in the past. We had set the expecta- tion with the marketing team that we would do what we can." So, they assumed it was going to be a great working product, but we were struggling between the two internal teams in a limited timeframe. In the end, the marketing team was disap- pointed because they didn't get what they were looking for. We got somewhere, but it wasn't something we felt proud about, and we kept explaining to them throughout that we're limited by what we can get from other depart- ments. So, there was a case of a lack of inter- nal buy-in from all the teams, and we were in the middle. We should have been firm on not taking it. We learned our lesson from that—understand the dynamics of the engagement. It didn't have anything to do with the ability to get the work done; it was the dynamics of the engage- ment and all of the stakeholders. Johnson: That's an interesting point. When we talk about what to do for cus- tomers, it's not common that we discuss our client's interdepartmental dynamics, and yet, it's crucial. We're not talking about components, packages, processes, and pick-and-place programming; we're concerned with how much unified belief our customers have, which is different. Irfan: That's very important, and I want to drive this point that for customers out there to know that we have been in trenches for 20 years with almost all aspects of what it takes to launch a product. We've faced all types of dif- ficulties and hurdles, and we have overcome a lot of them. There is tremendous value in a supplier who has gone through all of that and has your best interest in mind. You cannot find other companies like us out in the mar- ket. People are more focused on one individ- ual domain, but again, the bridge it takes from one to another to another is a burden custom- ers have to take on. In our case, we say, "Let us take care of all of that for you, so you have one party responsible." And in manufacturing, we have now Tier 1 customers who have extensive relationships and contacts in place with other Tier 1 CMs where these products eventually end up, but they bring in their early launch and ramp-up volumes to us sometimes. We leveraged the volume pricing that they already have in place to prepare the first few hundred to 10,000 while their large CMs are coming up to speed. We've also had some Tier 1s verbalize to us several times that it takes two weeks even for them to get in the system of our Tier 1s to get rework done. But with us, they show up in the lobby and say, "We have two large FPGAs with two connectors. We need them replaced now. Can you take care of it?" The human touch at Whizz Systems.