Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1392944
JULY 2021 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 71 Matties: Now we're hearing from manufactur- ers that material lead times are growing. Are you experiencing that? Are your customers feeling that from Isola? Kelly: Lead times are growing across the world, not just in the U.S., but across our global foot- print. Europe is extremely busy right now. Lead times have been stretched very far out. Although the QTA is running in North Amer- ica, it's a launch curve, so we are still qualify- ing current products for customers as well as putting commercial sales into that facility. It's not 100% of where we expected it to be by July, so that's not helping alleviate some of the lead times. Our facility in South Carolina is ex- tremely busy as well as our facilities around the globe. Once we get the QTA 100% oper- ational and have customers qualified by July, we should see some of those lead times com- ing down. Matties: With the demand for copper in indus- tries that aren't so demanding in terms of per- formance and specification, how does that play into our industry? Given the global effect right now, do you expect lead times to come down? Kelly: Copper is a number one topic. We're see- ing inflation on most of the direct raw materi- al inputs into our product. Copper is the big- gest focus because it has the most transparen- cy; you can see the price fluctuations on the LME. You can read about copper, almost daily, whether you're trading copper or using it as an input to manufacturing. We are also seeing in- creases in woven glass and resin systems; there are cost increases across the board. e inter- esting thing about copper is the amount of hy- perinflation we're seeing, partly because cop- per is in high demand for the electrification of vehicles. Charging stations also require a lot of cop- per, as well as the microelectronics market, PCBs, and laminate. We're seeing the price in- crease on copper almost daily, but there is con- cern about supply constraint as well, as cop- per grows in demand. We must continue to work closely with our suppliers to ensure that we have that continuity of supply to satisfy our customer demands. Matties: You're putting a lot of effort and focus on it, no doubt? Kelly: 100%. We're in South Carolina today, vis- iting Ridgeway. We had a team go out to some of our copper suppliers, and they're working as diligently as possible to keep up with demand and make sure that we have the ample supply to satisfy our customers. Matties: Where do you expect pricing to go? What should the fabricators be prepared for? Kelly: I wish I knew because then I could trade the commodity, but ultimately, every day you're reading new projections around cop- per. I read an article saying that it could go up to $20,000. Right now, I think we're hovering around $10,000. I don't think anyone knows. People are very familiar with the increasing de- mand for copper, especially with the focus on the electrification of vehicles. at's only part of the equation, so I don't know where it's go- ing to end. A lot of people wish they did. How- ever, all we can do is focus on the things we can control. We focus on automation, looking at some of the ways we can at least offset some of the cost increases, using different manufac- turing strategies. We do a lot of value stream mapping, Kaizen exercises, thereby removing waste out of our systems to try to offset some of those cost increases that we're all experiencing. Matties: When you look at the efforts that you've made, do you have a percentage of gain that you could share with us? Kelly: Yes. We use a lot of different key per- formance indicators (KPIs) to look at where we're able to become more optimal. I don't