Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1299286
26 PCB007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2020 Stevenson: We have a number of PCB fabri- cators that we have pretty good relationships with. We'll send work back and forth, etc. Generally, we'll have monthly check-ins where we'll always ask those questions, "What's the state of your business? What are you working on next?" Sometimes, they're at liberty to dis- cuss that with us. Other times, they say, "Talk to me again next month, and I'll have some- thing for you." For the most part, we have a pretty good open relationship where we're able to give a little bit of G2 before the press releases come out, even if it's just, "We're working toward this." If it's something that my customer's in- terested in and that my partner is working on, it's not as high a priority for me to bring that in- house at Sunstone now when I know that I'm going to have a partner to develop that ahead of us and we can get there in due course, rath- er than, "I need it tomorrow." Johnson: That gives you a chance to bridge the gap as it's moving into the mainstream. Stevenson: Typically, the way that it's worked for us is we can implement it faster with a higher success rate if we wait once the beta testing is over within the fabricators. Johnson: What's a recent example of using your roadmapping process that made things better for Sunstone? Stevenson: We updated our imaging to laser direct imaging over the past handful of years. It was a high-dollar ticket item for us to buy, but even with that, it paid for itself relatively quickly in terms of quality, repeatability, and throughput, even more than we had anticipat- ed. It allowed some of our immediate imaging staff to move to other areas where they could use that expertise to do other things, but their hands-on in the image department drastically decreased. That is one that had been on our roadmap for quite a while. We started and stopped on that process several times until we said, "Tech- nology is getting to a point, and cost structures are such that it makes really good sense to im- plement this," so we did. We paid for the piece of equipment in less than a year, and that's not a cheap piece of equipment. Johnson: Was there a clear decision point somewhere? Stevenson: All signs pointed toward this as somewhere we needed to go, but early on, they just couldn't support the high mix and panel throughput that we needed. Once those technology barriers were bridged, we picked up the project again. There wasn't one thing that said, "If we want to do this kind of work, we have to do it. If we want to keep the cus- tomer, we have to do it." It was just incremen- tally everything pointed in that direction. The ROI was there, we had the cash and the cash flow to do it, and it made good sense for us. Johnson: You looked at all of the different vec- tors on all of the different business factors, and they all went through the same spot. Rather than trying to justify it for some other reason, which maybe wasn't a well-thought-out stra- tegic decision, you held on to what they were doing and what worked well until it was clear that it was time to go to something else. Stevenson: Exactly. One of our main charters is being profitable and making good products for customers. A lot of those things come down to, "Can it be profitable right out of the gate, and can we not miss a beat with on-time de- liveries and quality." It may not need to be a proven technology, but it needs to be solid technology. Johnson: Sunstone works to preserve your on- time and overall yield or lack of scrap. What are your on-time and scrap metrics right now? Stevenson: Wildfires aside, we are still run- ning an on-time delivery close to 99.5%, and that includes one-day and two-day turns. Our production yield at this point has been trend- ing right around 98.5% yield. It's a really low scrap rate with few late deliveries.