Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/935136
16 SMT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2018 Feature Article by Andy Shaughnessy, Patty Goldman, and Stephen Las Marias, I-CONNECT007 For the upcoming issue of our I-Connect007 magazines, we interviewed Nolan Johnson of Sunstone Circuits, and Dan Beaulieu of DB Management—our regular columnist—on the topics of knowing your customers, the chal- lenges in dealing with customers, and provid- ing excellent customer satisfaction. Johnson has been with Sunstone for about 12 years now. His background is in computer science and then in capital equip- ment and display technologies, as well as PCB manufacturing. Curr ently, he is a project marketing manager at Sunstone. He's also on special assignment to their in-house sales team and doing some special projects around for that. Beaulieu, meanwhile, has been in the consult- ing business for 20 years now. He works with PCB companies and contract manufacturers, helping them with their strategies, and sales and marketing, primarily for growth. Patty Goldman: One of the things we hear in our ongoing expert meetings is that there is not enough communication between the differ- ent parts of the supply chain—the supplier and customer. There is a lack of communica- tion; working together is not what it should be. Beaulieu: It's very interesting because what's going on lately is that even my customer's customers are starting to come to me. I've had a few calls where a long-time buyer at Draper Labs, which is one of the highest technology buyers in the country, told me he has such a problem with board shops. And I told him it's because he doesn't communicate with them as well as he should. Going back to the old days when our customers, the Martin-Mariet- tas and the Raytheons, used to literally move into a board shop and work side-by-side with us on products that "no one" could build. And that's kind of gone by the wayside as we get into the no-touch stuff, which I picture as a kind of counter communication, if you will. And it's not the fault of the people that offer the no-touch service, it's kind of the fault of the corporations. This is the way I envision it: it's almost like down in the basement of one of the large companies are designers and engineers who don't want to go upstairs to the traditional