Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1419905
50 PCB007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2021 do so much PTFE and we do very little solder mask. But we have been intrigued with some of the ink technologies that are out there. We've been intrigued with a lot of different things that look like they could be very ben- eficial. Do we have the volume for it? I don't know. But if we're going to make a change, should we just make the change and go from there? at's a battle I have: it may cost more, but if it has more capability, it should benefit us in other ways. Some of the people who are actually doing the process are more set on, "I don't want to change." You've got to balance all that around, too. Matties: e old paradigms get in the way of some of the planning. People are stuck in the way that they do things, but when you look at DI as an example, sure, it was an expensive price tag. You chose to bite the bullet and the savings were greater than you expected. ere are so savings in there that you may not have even realized. For CapEx planning, we can't let the price tag scare us away from some of these technologies. I think that is the message. Bigelow: Absolutely. You must keep your eyes open for all the technologies coming down the pike. And, even if on the surface it appears to be either over- kill or something that's not going to quite fit into your situation, you should take a hard look at it because sometimes a technology may have a lot more capa- bility than it's being advertised to have, or the salesperson may not understand your business and where it might best fit in. You have to look at all of that. at's the exciting part, by the way, of capital spending. Every accoun- tant will sit there and moan and groan that no matter how much you think you're saving, you're not saving enough and it's costing too much money. But the exciting part is seeing what some of this equipment can do and how it can change how you operate. I tend to really like looking at equipment and seeing what it can do. I like going to shows and seeing everything. It's a little like when you go to a Home Depot. I know what all these things do but I'm not sure what I'd ever do with them. But you go to a trade show, and you see every- thing and say, "Yeah, I could use that. Maybe we should be considering something like this or that." Matties: How involved is your sales and mar- keting team in your CapEx planning, gener- ally? Bigelow: Since I run sales and marketing, they're very involved. But to that point, we get requests from people on doing things which we can't do. I pay attention. If I'm get- ting enough inquiries, what will it take to do that? We do a lot of substrates here and we get inquiries all the time about aluminum, which IMI's recent capital expenditures include a laser depaneling machine.