Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1518339
8 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2024 Nolan's Notes by Nolan Johnson, I-CONNECT007 Do More, Get More is month we're investigating box build, a manufacturing sector so closely adjacent to board assembly that some OEM custom- ers think they're the same thing. To those of us doing this work, we know they're very dif- ferent. Traditional electronic assembly work is typically concerned only with attaching the components to the circuit board. at's our idea of a "finished good." But what's finished to us is just a subassembly to the OEM. at board still must be hooked up to other bits and b o b s — m a y b e a power supply and a set of buttons, o r p e r h a p s a n enclosure. ere might b e o ther boards to connect either directly or via wiring. ose extra steps mean you're shipping the populated boards somewhere else, which lengthens the supply chain and man- ufacturing lead times, uses more logistical resources, and more. So, what to do? Well, for many OEMs, co-locating board assembly and box-build services make sense under these circumstances. Instead of a long line of vendors, each doing just one step of the assembly process, what if one vendor could do all the steps? is can make the OEM's life a lot easier. (I know, there are a lot of steps in assembly, but from an OEM product manag- er's point of view, board assembly is a single box on their supply chain flow chart.) For many EMS suppliers, adding box-build services makes sense, too. In essence, an EMS provider's value-add is project-based special- ized labor. If they can add even more specialized labor services, which are of value to their OEM customers, then they're likely to 1) get more business from each job in the queue; 2) earn customer loyalt y by owning more of the customer's manu- facturing process; and 3) attract new c u s t o m e r s w h o n e e d t h o s e e x - panded services as well. It's tempting. But board assembly and box build are like cats and dogs: Both can be very good for the quality of your life, but the care and feed- ing of the two are very different if you want them to thrive. W hen I star ted researching this topic, I expected we would publish content on technical and practical box-build topics: work- stations, tools, training, hiring, and such. But I soon realized this is a business planning story. What's different are the manufacturing philos- ophy and skill set; hiring criteria are similar, but also different. e supply chain, standards,