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90 I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2026 But from our perspective, the more interesting part of Delton's story addresses a fundamental chal- lenge facing Chinese PCB manufacturers expanding overseas: How do you transfer advanced manufac- turing capabilities outside China's mature supply chain and engineering ecosystem? Delton's executive management team quickly learned that customers did not simply want a conventional PCB factory located in Thailand, but an overseas manufacturing base capable of producing advanced products for servers, switches, acceler- ator cards, backplanes, and, eventually, advanced PCB products for GPU applications. This meant that Delton could not follow the traditional approach of "moving simpler products overseas first and upgrading gradually over time," Zeng Zhihun said. Delton's answer was not simply to send more engi- neers and skilled workers overseas or replicate its domestic operations. Instead, the company broke down its manufacturing know-how into explicit rules, embedded them in digital systems, and used them to automate factory management. Evaluating Costs Delton management said that the overall manu- facturing costs of PCB factories in Thailand are ap- proximately 20%–25% higher than those in China, a statistic repeated by multiple sources during our visits. The cost premium comes from several factors, including Chinese expatriate personnel, material transportation, procurement, utilities, and the relative immaturity of the local supply ecosystem, which re- quires some materials and chemicals to be sourced through Delton's China-based supply chain. Because of this, it was unrealistic to expect prof- itability from competing in low-end PCB markets, so building operations in Thailand had to support advanced products. Therefore, Delton Thailand was quickly positioned as a high-end manufac- turing operation. Additionally, in Delton's view, only by focusing on high-end products and building an advanced overseas manufacturing base can the company establish a firm foothold in today's rapidly changing and highly competitive market. Delton's product portfolio is centered on server motherboards used in general-purpose servers, AI racks, and switch trays. The Thailand factory can support PCIe 6.0 platforms, while also possessing the process capabilities required for PCIe 7.0 and 800G switch products. It is now further expanding its technical capabilities in advanced HDI, and next- generation switches and AI servers. The Heart of Smart Manufacturing As you walk into Delton's factory, the high level of automation is immediately apparent. Interconnected production lines, robotic arms, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), automated loading and unloading systems, and automated logistics systems have sig- nificantly reduced the need for manual handling and intervention between manufacturing processes. Transferring its mature manufacturing capabilities to Thailand was not a copy/paste from Guangzhou. Though equipment and materials do not funda- mentally change simply because they are used in a different location, the Thai factory has its own char- acteristics in terms of equipment configuration, auto- mation and digital architecture, logistics, and process flows, requiring existing technologies and processes to be adapted and recalibrated accordingly. What truly sets the bar for this factory, however, is not its impressive hardware. Delton has built an integrated system architecture connecting production planning, manufacturing, quality, equipment, and logistics. APS (Advanced Planning and Scheduling) handles production scheduling, MES (Manufacturing Execu- tion System) manages manufacturing execution, QMS (Quality Management System) governs quality rules, EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) manages equipment assets, WMS (Warehouse Management System) and MCS (Material Control System) coor- dinate warehousing and material flows, while EAP (Equipment Automation Program) connects produc- tion equipment and collects process parameters. General-purpose modules can be supported by third-party software, while the core systems designed specifically for PCB process control are developed and refined in-house. From an operational perspective, the factory has two logical layers: a rule layer that defines how production should run, and an execution layer that applies those rules to equipment and processes on the shop floor. In a conventional factory, the Control Plan (CP) and Inspection Plan (IP) often exist primarily as documents, T H A I L A N D FACTO RY S E R I ES • D E LTO N