Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1269815
30 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2020 Stepinski: It's mutually beneficial. We come to an arrangement regarding the cost to build parts and for our process equipment develop- ment. Then, the next step is a factory of their own, depending on what their outlook is and what their forecasts are. We have one client that's planning a whole factory on the same scale as the one we're facilitating right now. Matties: Are you nearing capacity in your facil- ity, or where are you at on that scale? Stepinski: No, we're not nearing physical ca- pacity. Because of our location, labor is more of a constraint than anything else. We're going to 24/7, but it's taking longer than we'd like. We're making progress, so we'll be there by the end of the year. Right now, we have two shifts and operate five or six days a week with plans for 24/7 by the end of the year. The biggest gate we have in get- ting physical capacity is qualification work. For example, if someone has a specific product, usually people aren't coming to us with stan- dard stuff, like requests I have for 15:1 aspect ratio blind structures. I have requests for half- mil and less, one-micron line and space, and then they want SAP on weird materials that no one has ever done SAP on before. We'd have to do a big qualification cycle with that. That's probably our biggest gate— sorting out what the process rules are and how efficient that is with our selection of processes. Should we consider an NRE to get a separate process for this application so that they can have an efficient operation? What's the op- erating cost delta? Do we want to sink some money into it? We have clients who are buying equipment here and placing it at our facility and in their facilities. We're facilitating a big reshoring effort here. That's our niche. Matties: Exactly. If you could get four or five— maybe 10—companies each kicking in $10–20 million apiece to build a new factory in Texas, for example, and let them have ownership and not just leasing part of the line, is that a viable business model? Stepinski: We fit in by providing the blueprint. We're the only experienced factory equipment building company in the U.S. right now. We don't do facility equipment, but we design a factory that's zero waste, and we build circuit boards every day. It's not easy to build equip- ment and hand it over. It's different when you have to use it every day. Matties: With your mod- el of training the team, setting up the factory from the ground up, making it zero waste, getting it off and run- ning, and not having an ownership stake in the factory but letting these OEMs own it as a captive facility or a co- op facility, it seems like there will be quite a bit of interest in that. Stepinski: The market right now would be interested in that. We have not made any attempt to sell that model yet. This is all happening because of the way we've been doing it. Matties: Right, but as you approach this with greater intent, with the timing as such, you're in such a wonderful position, and it seems like the reshoring effort could accelerate this model. Stepinski: We've been doing a lot of internal R&D on the factory design side, as well as on the equipment side. We've been focused on getting our equipment factory in Europe to support all these new technologies that we're being asked to do. It's a very interesting verti-