Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/582861
16 The PCB Magazine • October 2015 here. I had design work done, and I had selected all the long-term lead time items in case the de- cision was made to go forward. They wanted to get the capital in here before the end of the year so they could get the appropriate tax breaks for 2013. Six weeks later we had a meeting and the decision was made to go forward. Matties: What was their mandate? Did they come to you and put forward any requirements? Stepinski: They wanted to know what it would take to build their own boards, and I had to come up with a plan in my mind that had an ROI that would make them interested in the in- vestment. That's how this came about. This was the only solution I could arrive at that had an ROI that was within a reasonable range. Matties: When you came up with the solution, it wasn't because they said, "We want a fully auto- mated system." They just wanted something that would give them payback. Stepinski: Yes, and this was the only solution I could arrive that would give a payback. Matties: Is this something that you had been thinking of previously? Stepinski: No, this was a new problem. I had never worked in low-tech circuit board manu- facturing before. Matties: Tell us about the product that's being built here. Stepinski: It's primarily double-sided as well as single-sided metal core. A few percent are rigid- flex, and a few percent are multilayer rigid, but in general the technology is quite simple. Matties: You were saying you have about 2,500 different part numbers that you run through. Stepinski: Yes. It's a lot of different part numbers and it's difficult to get economies of scale on that over in the Far East. One of the challenges was to create a process that eliminated the setup cost associated with all those part numbers. To do that I made a totally digital continuous fac- tory that basically saw every part number as a widget and we eliminated all the setup costs as- sociated with it, aside from initial tooling. Matties: You had to build something that was ex- tremely flexible, because you can't stop for tooling changes and such. What was the greatest obstacle in your design when you first set out? FeATure WHELEN ENGINEERING REDUCES CyCLE TIME By BUILDING A NEW AUTOMATED PCB FACTORy circuit automation's silkscreening process. handling PcBs.