Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1419905
10 PCB007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2021 Feature Interview by the I-Connect007 Editorial Team Sunny Patel of Candor Industries discusses his company's significant growth during the past four months. He breaks down how they've managed their CapEx spending and the ratio- nale behind their recent capital equipment purchases. Barry Matties: Sunny, you have talked about substantial growth over a four-month period. How did you manage such growth? at's got to put a lot of stress on your systems. Sunny Patel: Well, I don't really know how it happened, actually (laughs). It was lucky, I suppose, in the sense that everything worked out at the same time. Usually, summers are slow, and with COVID, some of the automotive custom- ers were facing some penalties with Asian board shops going into 20-week lead times and four-week shipping containers costing double or triple the price. Instead, they found that our pricing was working out to be a better option. Matties: Automotive typically orders pretty large volumes. Are you geared to do large vol- ume work there, or did you see an increase in batch size? Patel: We're normally prototype or mid-vol- ume, and the equipment we purchased helped us offset the volume a little bit with the simi- lar amount of people that we have. We're up to 40 people; we were maybe at 30 or 35 full time before the pandemic. Matties: When you add people, though, it's not proportional to the revenue, because I would think that you're getting more automation into the facility. Patel: Yes, exactly. We purchased a direct imag- ing machine, an inkjet solder mask machine, an induction press, and a DIS inner layer pinless bonder. All those things helped offset manual Candor Demonstrates Growth and Investment Go Hand in Hand