Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1372612
84 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2021 During this period, Alex also refined the ze- ro-waste system, and made it a commercially viable product for others. It was also becoming clear that—with the zero-waste system and the success of building not just one, but two au- tomated PCB facilities—there was an oppor- tunity to help others set up their own captive shops. As Alex explains, it's much more than just setting up a new facility; the business mod- el GreenSource is bringing provides hands-on training for the staff that Alex's customers need to run their new factory. Now Alex and team are building boards and the equipment to produce those boards. ey are also developing a soware business to pro- duce tools that bring Industry 4.0 platforms to other PCB fabricators. is tool, of course, is based on their real-world experience building and running two automated PCB facilities. e following interview with Alex discusses the two factory projects he is working on with SEL and Vicor, along with an update on the zero-waste system and the soware develop- ment business. Barry Matties: Alex, let's start with the new fac- tories you are currently working on. Alex Stepinski: We have two active projects right now. ere are other factory projects in our pipeline that are proceeding; we're not un- der contract yet, but we're in the early stages. e scale of those projects is anywhere from about 30% less the size of Vicor, to about five times the size of SEL. at's the range of what we've been exposed to so far. For many peo- ple we're meeting with, this is their first foray. PCB is like an exotic industry nowadays, espe- cially since we're using a combination of pro- cesses that most OEMs aren't used to seeing. is has always been the case with the PCB in- dustry, though; it's been very convenient for them to outsource it somewhere because it's a pain to deal with. Our solution is to educate the OEMs on how to do it themselves. As we saw at Vicor, learn- ing the PCB processes and how to make bet- ter products improves your product develop- ment. en you start to consider totally new ways to do things, which you can see at Vicor. ey did a whole new product line leveraging what were historically PCB processes and tak- ing them into a completely different applica- tion. Because of this situation, I don't see that we're the guys who are going to drop an Asian- scale factory in Nebraska, or something like that. at's not us. What we can do, though, is say, "Hey, we can help you design the work cells, we can provide some amount of equip- ment, and we can help you broker the equip- ment." We provide consultation to this kind of client, and we can help by making a demo cell; it's really all about the scale. Matties: Is there a particular size company that you are looking to work with? Stepinski: If it's the same size as what we've been looking at, sure, we can do the whole thing. But if it's for a crazy-large scale, then we're probably just able to offer the recycling technology, the general consultancy for the whole thing, and then some specific pieces of equipment. If they want more from us, then we can take a more integrated approach, scale up, and add resources. Matties: Interestingly, when we interviewed SEL, they were talking about the innovation PCB is like an exotic industry nowadays, especially since we're using a combination of processes that most OEMs aren't used to seeing.