Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1530610
40 PCB007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2024 How Successful Will Those PCB Factories Be? Over the past few months, I have talked with leading experts and several CEOs and senior managers from companies currently building factories in ailand 8 . Based on these conver- sations, I have compiled the following points of concern. is list is a compilation; not all these points necessarily apply to every com- pany. Whether you are a company planning a China Plus One solution or a Chinese PCB shop considering overseas investment, bear those points in mind during the decision-mak- ing process. • Despite investment subsidies from the ai government, PCB companies' boards of directors are faced with huge decisions to make: › e market is not currently developed, except for IC substrates. Will all the factories under construction be finished and equipped? › Existing overcapacities in China due to the current market situation have already resulted in PCB price dumping. Should that trend continue, will all the invest- ment money already approved get used? Will there still be an interest to continue? › For most of these PCB manufacturing companies it will be their first time investing heavily outside of China. Experienced senior managers will be on foreign assignment to ailand for a considerable period of time (three years may not be long enough). at cost will be carried by the customers. › Although many ais learn Mandarin Chinese in school, will that knowledge be enough to communicate with senior Chinese managers who don't speak ai? › ese factories are required to be joint ventures. Chinese shareholders don't have the same power as in their home- land factories. • ere is a shortage of general operators and engineers, not to mention the right attitude toward work at the operator level. › Since all the factories will be built in the same industrial zones, workers might be willing to change jobs or companies for a few Baht more per week. This might drive up wages to retain employees, and Thai- owned PCB shops might lose experienced staff to these newly built foreign enterprises. › Workers abandoning their jobs after receiving their weekly pay has been reported from Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Chinese companies are familiar with such issues in the Chinese New Year, when a sizeable percentage of employees do not return to work once it's over; in Thailand, however, this happens frequently throughout the year. • European and U.S. companies have con- cerns about protecting their IP rights when sourcing from China. Can IP rights be protected even when engineers take jobs with competitors on short notice? • PCB plants have a lot of recirculating water these days, but they still require a substan- tial volume of fresh water from the public network. Can that water requirement be supplied continuously? • Chinese PCB shops have power supply issues, mainly during the summer. How- ever, nobody knows how good the ai power grid is or will be. • Whereas the Chinese transport infrastruc- ture is well established, infrastructure in ailand is just beginning to emerge, par- ticularly in industrial zones. is means that senior managers will probably have to live in hotels and short-term lodging is quite far away from the factories. • We all know that quality issues arise occa- sionally in every factory, regardless of how good a quality system is. When issues arise, which language will be used, given