Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/582861
20 The PCB Magazine • October 2015 mation and a substantial portion of the wet- process equipment. Matties: In terms of the way you're managing all of your utilities, they're all overhead: It's con- crete floor, well-polished, no trenches, and every- thing's dry and contained. What was your think- ing there? Stepinski: Having worked in a lot of different shops, I saw the trench as a liability. If you have a trench then it's going to get filled with solu- tion and leaks will not be addressed when they happen. That's number one. Number two, when you have a trench you tend to collect all your waste into central pipes, so if you're actually running the waste treatment system and have a problem, troubleshooting is extremely difficult. You end up having to go to every single process step in a lot of cases to try to find the source of the problem. When you have everything in separate lift stations, segregated, you can immediately find which lift station it's coming from and address that process. The troubleshooting time is vastly reduced. That's the justification for that system. Without a trench you're eliminating that po- tential for having a crack down there that goes unnoticed for a long time, because it's not easy to inspect some trenches. Matties: Right. So you have only 17 staff mem- bers, and this is a captive facility. I think this is the first captive facility coming to America in many years. Do you think this is going to be- come a trend now that there's a model like this in place? Stepinski: I hope that what we've done here at Whelen, as the proof of concept, can be done in other factories at different levels. I think what we've proven here is that you can compete with the Asian Pacific region on price and you can do it in a very responsible way. I hope it's a model for continuing to reshore business here in America. Matties: You guys have been very welcoming. You've opened your doors, let us look under the hood and shoot video, ask questions, talk to your people, etc. Why are you so forthcoming with that? What's the motivation to share this? Stepinski: We actually do want to share the technology so that other factories and compa- nies in the Western world can learn from us and continue that trend of bringing manufacturing back. Our CEO is a tremendous advocate of manufacturing in America and he's really into promoting reshoring. Matties: I see a lot of American equipment here. I do see some international equipment like Atotech and Schmoll and such, but it's mostly American. Did you go to look for American com- panies first? FeATure WHELEN ENGINEERING REDUCES CyCLE TIME By BUILDING A NEW AUTOMATED PCB FACTORy Fully automated iPS Enig plating line. atotech uniplate integrated horizontal System.