Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1379105
52 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2021 stand the culture; they can audit and provide information about our factories. In the past, customers would always fly to China and audit factories themselves. Obviously, that's not an option at this point, and I don't really know when it will be again, frankly. We've had to learn this new normal, and we now have the ability to put our employees at our production partners' factories and provide virtual audits. ey have real-time communication with the factories to review documents, see the assem- bly lines, drilling and routing machines, the plating processes, all while we guide them through the factory with our own employees. China is still very proprietary. ey don't necessarily care for strangers walking through their factories—especially with cameras to document processes—so we were very for- tunate to have long-term, contractually-obli- gated relationships with our production part- ners in China. is allowed us to streamline that process and get our new and existing cus- tomers up to speed. It's something that we've always done, because to be a vendor or a pro- duction partner for ICAPE Group, you must allow our employees to work in your factories. at's not always an easy thing to accom- plish, but it's a mandatory requirement from a factory perspective. We want to make sure that our employees are monitoring our customers' part numbers as they're being man- ufactured, not just the inspection of the quality, but also to validate that the correct raw materials are being used and the lead times abided by. ey monitor the corporate culture of the partner as well, to reduce turn- over to maintain the correct capacity. Communicating that to our custom- ers helps mitigate that risk of doing business in China or a disruption in the supply chain. is is so impor- tant, especially now. Johnson: What are the types of dis- ruptions you're seeing? Harts: ere's a shortage of raw materials, a shortage of copper foil, and lead times are unfortunately dramatically increasing. is is all a result of the pandemic in the last year. e raw materials are in high demand and lead times are increasing because of the raw material shortage. Additionally, there is an increase in shipping costs because of flight restrictions for international locations. is impacts customers receiving parts from China. It's nice to work with a company like ICAPE Group that has those boots on the ground—to help lower the risk of disruption. It allows us to communicate proactively to our customers because we have a live presence in China. Johnson: How have your customers reacted to the way you're doing this work? Your OEM customers are getting a brand-new experi- ence thanks to the pandemic. What is their response? Harts: I think OEMs especially want to be hands- on to ensure that things are manufactured to their requirements. Now, these types of inter- actions—Zoom and Teams, the video confer- encing calls, the virtual audits—it's what we all call "the new normal." As a global company with 19 offices around the world, we know this Part of ICAPE Group's off-shore team located in China.