Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1463464
34 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2022 for the lowest possible input? Is that the mea- sure? Kottke: You need to measure everything, all the time. Everybody who has come in here with the robotic arms and such say they are going to save me money. ey don't make the cut because none of them have the data to back up their claims for my situation. Matties: You need a team that understands the integration. If you start piecemealing a robot arm here, and a robot there, without a mas- ter plan, you'll just wind up with a hodgepodge of robotic arms doing who knows what. Kottke: at's true. If you're not careful, you wind up having a cool automated system which needs five additional engineers to support the darn thing. Matties: On a daily basis, what's the most impor- tant data set for you? Kottke: Quality. If you're constantly getting better and more efficient, you need to make sure that the quality isn't impacted. If it's impacting the quality even a tiny bit, then it might not be better. Johnson: With Voyager working so well, let's explore a particular supply chain idea. ere is a lot of talk about moving away from "just in time" to "just in case." Kottke: Oh yeah, and everybody should be. Johnson: at thinking, for a less sophisticated EMS company, might be to just increase all inventory by 20%, to just stock more of every- thing in case something goes wrong. How does that compare? Can Voyager help ensure a "just in case" thought process rather than "just in time?" Kottke: Honestly, Voyager can't help on this one. In April 2020, I told everyone that the light at the end of the tunnel is a giant train, so buy parts. Just before that, I was sending out emails to all our customers to prepare them. I'm now going to my customers and saying, "Here's the deal. If there's any way you can swing it, buy all the parts you pos- sibly can. Especially with the long lead time and high-cost parts, let's fig- ure out how to bond it, or secure the problem parts. But you're going to pay for the material because I cannot be a bank for you. You should not take a chance on me trying to schedule parts like we used to, because you'll be in hell." Matties: Where do you see pricing headed? Kottke: Oh, just crazy. e amount of broker buys and the PPVs is like nothing I've ever seen. Matties: Are you doing any box build, Michael? Kottke: We are, a lot. Matties: Is that something that you had been doing for many years or is this something that you've recently added? Kottke: We've been doing it for many years, but we're doing a lot more of it now.