Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1476200
12 PCB007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2022 Dan Beaulieu: And in the end, Dave, you're going to have a lot more. I mean, you have min- imum wage issues, the gap with your employ- ees, and insurance. I've seen this at every shop I work with, and I'm not working with billion- dollar shops. I work with shops from $48 mil- lion in revenue all the way down to $3 or $4 million, and it's all the same. ey've all been hit pretty hard. is isn't to put any other industry segment down, but if you're assem- bling boards, you have quite a bit more con- trol. Assembling boards is basically about how well you can manage your supply chain, and how well you can purchase, that kind of thing. But on the board side, it's a bit of black magic. Dave, would you say there are about 120 steps in building some boards, especially when you're doing blind and buried vias? Ryder: It ranges from about 35 steps to 120 steps or more, depending on the complexity. It isn't as simple as just changing suppliers for this or that, looking for a lower cost. We've got a formula that works with the products that we use. We can't randomly change vendors with- out disrupting our quality level. Beaulieu: It's heavy on equipment and keeping equipment up. We've got the black magic of the plating line. ere are a lot of moving parts that have to be controlled, and that's why we have all the quality systems, from AS 9100 and more. But still, it's 120 opportunities to screw up. Ryder: It's heavily dependent upon the skills of the operators. Frankly, our biggest chal- lenge isn't so much getting supplies—it's peo- ple. at's a terrible challenge, and we're not alone. Restaurants and on down the line are having those same issues. But in our particular processes, we're more heavily dependent upon people than we are having automated equip- ment. Beaulieu: Regarding the price issue, it's tough for everybody. I just read the new book about Jack Welch called e Man Who Broke Capital- ism. Welch had no interest in loyalty of employ- ees; he was all about bottom-line money. He led the way to kill off American suppliers and take it offshore. at hurt us as well. It was all about cheap labor. While Americans back in the '80s and '90s were held to the highest stan- dards, Asia was not. at has changed. I'm not saying that today, but that has changed. We've been behind the pricing eight-ball for decades, and it's been hard. On the other side, you've got customers telling fabricators, "Why don't you just buy this LDI machine? Why aren't you invest- ing in your company?" Well, it's really hard to invest when you've got minimum margins. at's really what affects the price. I remem- ber when a contract manufacturer (CM) came into a shop with their team to tell them that they were pricing wrong and building wrong, simply because they wanted it to fit into the PCBA business model. I don't think there has been much sympathy for the pricing of PCBs. ere have been alternate ways of beating the price of the domestic suppliers as well. Dave Ryder