Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1514628
JANUARY 2024 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 9 Nolan Johnson is managing editor of SMT007 Magazine and co-managing editor of PCB007 Magazine. Nolan brings 30 years of career experience focused almost entirely on electronics design and manufacturing. To read other columns or to contact Johnson, click here. • In fact, this giving model became a philos- ophy in and of itself, giving birth to open- source soware. Today, most high-com- plexity business operations soware and data centers run on open-source soware. In these cases, these innovations arguably made the world a better place. Open access to the protocols enabled entire industries to be created. Holding onto processes and process data likely hampers the ability of industry to grow cooperatively. e less black magic there is in designing for fabrication, the more likely folks are to try their hand at making a board for themselves. e more fabricators are forth- coming about their processes, the more inter- changeable fabricators become. at's a good thing because now you're competing on your value-add. In the late 1980s, I was a new soware engi- neer writing code for a fresh young startup called Mentor Graphics. In a company meet- ing, COO Gerry Langeler was celebrating something like 12 consecutive quarters of record sales, and stated that the reason for Mentor's success was, "Once you have them by the database, their hearts, minds, and wallets will follow." Back then, Mentor Graphics had a "walled garden" approach to the data, some- thing it maintained for quite some time. e challenge with a walled garden strat- egy is that, unless you can do 100%+ of what the customer desires, there will inevitably be a "compelling event" that will justify giv- ing up on your products completely to shi to another vendor with that key feature. at was the way of the world in Mentor's market back then. By embracing interchangeability and inter-platform communication, custom- ers didn't have to dump everything just to add a piece they needed. By knocking down the walls of their garden, those EDA companies grew even faster. If prospective customers knew more, they'd be better able to determine that some of their marginal fab work at "Vendor A" would do bet- ter with you. Sure, you might lose a part num- ber or two to another fab, but chances are good your customer will only move the work you struggle with anyway, allowing you the capac- ity to take on more business that's in your most profitable sweet spot. In this issue, we investigate how to build a good communication relationship with your customers. Dana Korf, an I-Connect007 col- umnist, discusses how designers and man- ufacturers should be synchronized. NCAB's field application engineers explore how to fos- ter loyal customer/vendor relationships. Don Ball of Chemcut uses his column space to talk about the ins and outs of getting to know your vendor, and in an interesting interview, Sean Patterson of Summit Interconnect talks about creating a culture of operational efficiencies— something we can all learn from. In addition, this month we bring you a 2023 IPC APEX EXPO technical paper on new resin systems for board fab issues (AGC), and col- umnists chiming in this month include Steve Williams, Paige Fiet, Happy Holden, Henry Crandall, and Mike Carano. Now, I'm not saying that you should open everything to the world but give some thought to what knowledge really needs to be secret, and what more you can open up to help design- ers understand you better. Remember, design- ers have a history of using new knowledge in creative and, sometimes, revolutionary ways. Let's take a listen. PCB007