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12 The PCB Design Magazine • November 2015 software to connect supplement Integr8tor. Matties: When you say your own software, is that something you developed? Garcia: Yes, it's basically a customized CRM plat- form. Some production data, like process cards, are still printed, but eventually everything is digitized and stored on our servers for easy ac- cess which is especially important given that a good portion of our engineering staff works re- motely and needs real-time access to data. As we continue to grow and identify bottle- necks, we make sure employees have the access they need. Not long ago, QC may have been in- specting a job but may not have all the details. Maybe they just had a fab print and the process card, so would have to walk over to Planning and say "I'm seeing something out of the ordi- nary; was this approved by the customer?" To- day they have full access. Each job gets a tool number, and then everything is saved on our server for employees to access the data required. That's the hardest part of our job: incom- plete or conflicting customer data. Every cus- tomer is different when it comes to Gerbers and by Barry Matties A lot of companies talk about the impor- tance of good data management, but for some firms, this amounts to little more than lip ser- vice. Then there are companies like fabrica- tor Bay Area Circuits. I recently sat down with Bay Area Circuits President Stephen Garcia and COO Brian Paper to discuss how automating and upgrading their data systems has signifi- cantly cut down overall process time, as well as their drive to educate young PCB designers and actively promote the industry to the emerging electronics industry workforce. Barry Matties: let's talk about how you manage your data. Are you a completely electronic com- pany? Stephen Garcia: We have tried to go as paperless as possible, and we're talking actual production data starting from the Gerber. We use Ucamco's Integr8tor software, which is the entire compa- ny's backbone. That is our database. Everything is automated. And then we've tied in our own Good in, Good out: Bay Area circuits discusses data strategies Brian paper stephen garcia feature interview