Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1443477
JANUARY 2022 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 35 If someone asks, I will say what I think, but they never ask us now. ey are intelli- gent and do what they think is best. For many years, my advice was to tell the French govern- ment to do more industry. We have met peo- ple, not only us, who say, "Look, the industry is going down." ey don't care. So, we must fight. ey say, "We are going to be a service country. What is a PCB? We don't need them; we can buy them in China. It's very easy to buy in China." But they change. Very clearly, they changed. My best advice is to gain support from your government, your region, your city. Some PCB shops located in cities were told, "We don't want you anymore in the city because of the pollution. You are not allowed to pollute France. We don't want a factory. We prefer to have educated or white-collar people." But this is changing in Europe, which is good and important. Johnson: is has been excellent. ank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts. Kahn: ank you very much. PCB007 All CCI Eurolam equipment photos used in this article © David Vicent. Printed electronics has a strong future as there is a trend toward manufacturing high- tech product. For that, you need two types of equipment, and you need both high-tech and low-tech people. You need the engineers and technicians. We have good universities, so we have a lot of good engineers. It's more compli- cated for operators, but it's going to come back because now, the workers don't know what to do. In France, for example, we have seen the government's ministry of industry say some- thing like, "Industry is not a bad word. You young people can work in industry. It's no lon- ger the coal mine." But it takes time to get young people to be more attracted to industry, whatever it is, not just PCBs. You also need qualified people. We have them, but probably not enough. All of Europe is investing in training its young peo- ple for the various businesses in electronics, and it's the first time in many years that we have seen this trend, so I'm optimistic. Now, between what we want and what we do may be a little different. Johnson: With all your years of experience in the industry, do you have any advice for the industry moving forward? Kahn: It's hard to give advice. We are a distrib- utor with high-tech services, and we have very strong support. We are here to support our product, to help the customer use the product, or when they have the equipment, to make the equipment work. is is our job. But, as has happened before, when we tell a customer or PCB shop, "You should do this," they say, "But you don't know my customer, so we want to stay as we are." It's true, we don't know. You can ask my company anything about under- standing the product we are selling to support you when you use the product. If it's equip- ment, we are there to install the equipment, maintain it, and make it work. I ask my peo- ple to always stay a part of whatever strategy or what they think. Alain Kahn