Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1269815
JUNE 2020 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 31 cal integration of having a competent equip- ment facility. Especially as you're doing this SAP-type product, there are a lot of require- ments. You can't have any particles. You can't touch anything inside the circuitry area. But still, there are processes when you're doing SAP that should be spray for the anisotropy as- pects to get some reduced diffusion layers. Matties: Can you find stuff like that on the mar- ket? Stepinski: Not really. Everybody does SAP in some vertical mode, and it's all kind of hokey, but it's the best-known practice at this time, so we're working to develop alternatives. It's nice when you're building boards every day because you get a lot of feedback from your equipment group. Matties: Even with this co-op model, you could then extend the maintenance contract and be responsible for all site maintenance as well. Stepinski: We're doing that. We are offering short service levels, from maintenance to engi- neering support for factories. We see that this is also a niche. One of the biggest challenges in the market is that no one knows how to build a factory anymore. This is all lost knowledge. No one knows how the pyramids were built any- more, either. It's all a mystery. The same thing is true with the board shops. They all kind of got there by decades of trial and error, and every- body who knows how it got there is retired or dead. We're trying to fill this niche and be the educators. "Here's why we do or don't do this." With our resources and recent experience of bringing up our own factories, we've done two major projects of our own. And we have a lot of lessons learned that we can bring to the market. Matties: The market needs to be aware that a viable solution is in place for them that they can rely on. But labor is going to be an ongo- ing issue no matter what, and even with fram- ing the facility, it's still a challenge across the industry. You're setting up these facilities to be operator-free, essentially. What sort of labor requirement would still be there for these cap- tive facilities to address? Stepinski: It's technical and maintenance. Those are the big areas—all trainable. You need good technical and maintenance staff to do a modern facility. Matties: But if your company is providing the maintenance benefits or maintenance service, then all they need on their end is a deploying team. Stepinski: We're doing it a couple of different ways. We can provide some maintenance ser- vice. We can train their people. We can have a person on-site, but we're also not trying to. One of the standard equipment business models out there in sales is service and spare parts. That's not our model. We're trying to make products that don't need any spare parts or service. People are willing to pay more for a machine with more controls, and they are looking at total cost-to-quality typically in the U.S. market than they would in another place. Our equipment typically is not manufactured in the U.S. The U.S. industry has fallen behind the industry leaders of the world. We all ac- cept and know that. It stands to reason that every area of what we do is a little bit behind. We're trying to provide the equipment that's the highest quality standard on the market, that you could achieve at a reasonable cost, and that doesn't need service or spare parts. We provide the training that's needed. We can connect to our remote leads, diagnose, and say, "Do this." This is our model. Otherwise, it's not substantial. You can't sell somebody something that needs constant maintenance, and then import a team of people who are used to dealing with that to come and do it for you. It's not a practi- cal approach because the biggest reason peo- ple are doing captive facilities in the OEM is IP or security. That's not a workable model. We have to do everything domestically. Especial- ly with the COVID-19 situation, you can't get somebody over here. You have to quarantine for two weeks.