Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1469343
12 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2022 Johnson: So, by having comple- mentary areas of specialty, you can work together, making those component pieces larger than the individual parts? Lawrence: It's larger than the industry when we put it together. Dan Beaulieu: e way I see it, you have some operations that Chris can't do, and he has some that you can't do. Kalmus: at's right Dan. ese are unusual times. We're dealing with an industry that's basically been devastated over the last two decades. You go back three decades, and North America produced maybe 50–60% of all the circuit boards in the world. It was a highly resil- ient industry; it could take some body blows and still be okay. I've seen a lot of different esti- mates that we now produce probably less than 4% of the world's production, while China cur- rently is probably producing more than 50%. Beaulieu: Some sources say over 80%. Kalmus: Our industry is so stretched that it's not even possible for everybody to have every- thing that they want, to do everything that they want. Partnerships, from materials to final assembly, help fill the void. Lawrence: We must work together. We must trust each other. We must use each other's machinery. Some- times we are not allowed to collab- orate, but we do it when we can. We do what we can to keep things here and work together as a team, keeping things here in the States. It's not just building the product. It's keeping the machinery running and keeping our factories running. It's what it takes to build the product. Kalmus: Circuit board innovations have always relied on people who have ideas, who know how to do things, and can extrapolate to other ways of doing things. To me, that's probably the bigger part of our partnership. Brigitte and Chuck (Lawrence) are two unique peo- ple in the printed circuit board world, with their knowledge and what they're capable of doing. We've always been innovative, going all the way back to Kalmus and Associates in the 1950s and 1960s. Lawrence: Brigitflex used to be Pentaplex, and we go as far back as he does. We've made mil- lions and millions of parts, and now we're building materials. People contact us and say, "We can't find material." ey inform us that material lead time is 46 weeks for a specific Dk, or they need a board at two mils, or under a half a mil, or two inches thick with components inside of it. ey ask if we can manufacture and make it. Between what Chris can do and what we can do, we get that to our customer in under two weeks. is is a part- nership that leverages that knowledge. We've made material using all Christopher Kalmus