Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1398328
62 SMT007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2021 machines. We have two 4060s on our floor and they're both working flat out. We program by day, we test by night, and we test on weekends when we can't keep up with it during the week. ose machines are very, very busy right now. For one reason, we can create a test program, debug it, and be testing boards in days where using our old standby in-circuit testing takes weeks and sometimes months to do the same thing. With flying probe, you can achieve the same thing or most of the same thing that ICT does for a fraction of ICT's cost. Where ICT might cost you $20,000 for a fixture in program, you might spend $3,500 for a program for fly- ing probes. It's implementable very quickly. Johnson: It sounds like, while you're busy, you are doing everything you can to have as much capacity as possible for some very busy cus- tomers. Boguski: Yes. We've added equipment. We acquired one of our two flying probe machines in the last year, and we're starting to give some thought to acquiring a third machine. It's that busy. We've added some personnel in a cou- ple of areas just to give us some added flexibil- ity. We run two shis as it is. We're open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday, but we've beefed up both of our shis—day and swing—a little bit to make ourselves a little more flexible, and handle some of the overflow that we're starting to see. e other thing we're getting, being who we are, we tend to use our machines in a much wider range of appli- cations than most EMS companies do. Using flying probe as the example, we use all of the features in our machines where your basic tier three, tier two EMS company may not do so. We have a slightly higher level of experience and expertise perhaps than they do. What oen happens is some of our customers will prioritize their jobs and they'll keep in-house the simpler stuff, maybe the less expensive stuff, and they'll give us the tough stuff. ey'll take the nine easy jobs and we'll get the one hard job. We're used to that. We charge accordingly. Takes longer to do it because it's the harder job, but we document our work and we can defend what we do, and if the customer really wants to meticulously go through what we've done (and actually under- stands it enough to ask challenging questions), we provide coverage reports of everything we do, and they can see. It's all on display. We have nothing to hide. Johnson: Do you see this level of customer demand abating any time soon? Boguski: Short-term, and I would define short term as perhaps the next six months? Correct. Beyond that, six months to a year looks pretty steady to me. Beyond that is anybody's guess, and there are lots of factors—political, macro- economic, weather, etc.—that are beyond our control. We're just going to have to see. One thing I'm watching very carefully is the so- called onshoring phenomenon. Is it real? Is it happening? We're getting a lot of inquiries from Mexico and Canada. ings that used 3D multi-level view of BGA balls.