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16 The PCB Magazine • September 2014 THE FAMILy (SuN)STONE continues The Sunstone Team in the words of director of manufacturing nan- cy Viter: at sunstone, the philosophy of empowerment is more than just a catch phrase. each team mem- ber is a leader in his own way, and understands that the responsibility to give the customer the best ex- perience possible falls squarely on each individual's shoulders. the beauty of this way of thinking is that there is very little finger-pointing when prob- lems arise. team members are expected to con- tribute to the solution, regardless of the challenge. if a piece of equipment goes down in the middle of the night, waiting until morning when a lead- er arrives is not an option. this builds teamwork, as all available resources come together to share manpower and knowledge. are there teachable moments that might result in a well-meaning, but perhaps unsuccessful solution? absolutely! but individuals know that making a decision is better than doing nothing at all, and with all the years of experience and successful problem solving to call on, the risk of this empowerment philoso- phy is minimal. from the head of the organization all the way to the newest, youngest staff member, sunstone leads by example, whether there is a title attached to the name or not, and this concept is taught in word and deed as new hires are trained. all that said, here is a snapshot of some em- ployees who contribute to our success daily: Rocky Catt (41 years), co-owner: with 30+ years of experience, rocky has served as a line supervi- sor, general manager and is the vice president and Coo of sunstone Circuits, where he oversees the company's operations. Terry Heilman (16 years), co-owner: terry over- sees all corporate operations, strategic marketing and financial planning for the company, and sun- stone's significant growth reflects heilman's guid- ance and contribution to providing the most ex- treme customer experience in the industry. What I liked most about the guarantee is the opportunity it provides Sunstone to improve the process. I remember when Mo- torola went to Six Sigma (zero defects) as the quality standard to strive for back in the 1980s. They realized that if they chose the more attainable goal of Three Sigma they could continue to do the same things just a little better. With Six Sigma they'd have to change everything. It caused a revolution in their manufacturing. In my mind, the guar- antee is that kind of an effort, and it would cause many in the industry to have to re- invent their companies. Still, many compa- nies will tell you that they're 100% on time but when you really look at the data, that isn't the case. There are lots of exceptions used when calculating that number. The Sunstone guarantee, from what I gathered, is that they honor the guarantee regardless of the situation without input from the cus- tomer. If they don't do what they say, they pay. As a result, over 50% of the customers who've received free boards are pleasantly surprised. Open all year That's another differentiator the compa- ny uses to expound on their customer ser- vice. They are always open, and available to take customer calls. Heilman was unapolo- getic when we talked about the commitment behind this next level of service. "Why not? Why wouldn't we offer this to our custom- ers? Shouldn't they be able to talk to some- body whenever they want? If it's important to them to know the status of their boards or to try and solve a problem on New Year's Eve, shouldn't it be important to us, as well?" The Squeeze Since I'm not a maker of prototypes, I haven't been noticing the effect that im - provements in PCB design software has had on this segment. It seems that the software is getting pretty good. In fact, as Viter point- ed out, they're seeing fewer and fewer PCB revisions. Customers are now able to prove out designs in software, pretty much, which leads to fewer prototype orders.