Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/536970
48 The PCB Magazine • July 2015 get people quite a bit of capacity in a very short lead time. In the RF world, this has historically been a pretty drawn-out process. In other parts of the circuit board industry people are used to building things in two to three days; 3–4 weeks is not uncommon for RF work. We'd like to change that paradigm as well, be- cause again, that quick-turn negates the overseas competition. Because if I have an option, I have my 10 designers who have worked on a project, sitting around burning cash on my P&L waiting for the prototypes to come back to be tested. If I can turn that from 14 days to 4 days, that's a game changer for my cost structure and my ability to get my product out to commercialization. So we'd like to bring the kind of re - sponsiveness to the RF world that we have done in the rest of the North American proto- typing phase. Matties: It's a big issue out there. The other thing that sur- vey respondents mentioned was strategy. Lowering cost and ask- ing to reduce profit are separate issues, because there are strat- egies to lower cost while you still maintain the right profits, I would think. Parent: There are great opportuni- ties to take cost out of building circuit boards; it's tough and it takes a lot of work. It really does mean you have to change some things. Jason talked about the printed electronics space. There is an opportunity for additive technology; we're going to see more of that. But for the day-to-day stuff, less expensive materials are available. And this brings opportunity for us; it challenges us on some fronts; it brings opportunities on other fronts, but people have to be willing to change. We spend a lot of our time trying to get people to change and trying to protect the markets that we do have from changing away from us. But wheth - er it is quick turn, being able to deliver some- thing in four hours instead of four days is what brings the opportunity for our customers to be more competitive and adds to their bottom line and profitability. It isn't just about the price that we sell it at, it's the services behind it, and I know our customers are doing the same thing. They're trying to get top dollar for 24-hour quick-turns. We do a lot to support our customers; that's why we're in business, and we continue to be able to invest in Insulectro. Our customers depend on us for the inventory that we have on our shelf, or the ability to get it quickly from Isola or DuPont. Matties: I don't know that price is the focal point; it's total cost. And there's a mindset that has to shift. Marsh: The incremental ap - proach is to squeeze a few more pennies out of the tra- ditional construction method, and obviously there's merit there; the market will prog- ress. Where you get the sea- change opportunities, as Ken mentioned, are in totally dif- ferent ways of looking at it. One example is the Ormet- type material where you can build a high layer-count board in sub-assemblies and test the sub-assemblies. So instead of having a 40-, 50- or 60-layer se - quential lamination that fails at the end, you have four 15-layer sub-lams, all of which you could confirm tested well before as- sembly. Now all of a sudden you have a signifi- cant yield improvement, and the part you're throwing away might cost you $2,000 to produce instead of $10,000. Those are the kinds of things that give the customers a competitive edge that is not easily supplantable. If it's just a material price negotiation, it's the same process everyone else uses; you're never going to be effective at going head-to-head against a shop that's on 700 acres in China. The scale is unmanageable. On the oth - er hand, you're going to provide better reliability, quicker turns, and a different approach. Then all of a sudden it's not a level playing field anymore; ACCOMPLISH CHANGE TOGETHER (ACT) continues Feature there are great opportunities to take cost out of building circuit boards; it's tough and it takes a lot of work. it really does mean you have to change some things. Jason talked about the printed electronics space. there is an opportunity for additive technology; we're going to see more of that. " "