Circuits Assembly - July 2008 - (Page 12)

NEWS In Brief and other leadless devices; secrets of Pb-free rework: helpful, practical hints for reworking Pb-free PCBs, and noncontact solder removal for rework. In addition, hands-on demonstrations will include BGA reballing techniques, BGA x-ray inspection, QFN rework, and Pb-free hand soldering tips. To register, contact Gerri Noble at gnoble@ntech-inc.com. Hon Hai will enter the notebook contract manufacturing market next year, the Commercial Times reported. Hon Hai, the world’s largest ODM and the parent of Foxconn (fih-foxconn.com), primarily makes connectors, desktops, MP3 players, game consoles and cellphones. Some analysts feel the move won’t affect the major notebook manufacturers, however. The Commercial Times quoted Daiwa Institute of Research analyst Calvin Huang as saying Foxconn lacks design capability and “we have not seen them land any big [contract manufacturing] projects yet, so I don’t see any impact to the other players.” MH: The good news is that today the United States is the low-cost manufacturing center. (Laughter) To me, this is a huge opportunity for American manufacturers to get their act together. We’ve been given a second chance here, and by doing this, by exporting, by designing, by being more efficient – these are all American qualities, and it has been forgotten because, unfortunately, an awful lot of the companies we work with – and for – have basically taken a supply chain management approach. Not a lot of OEMs build things anymore. And one of the problems we have with that is we have lost a lot of our infrastructure there, but what’s left of us is a lot stronger. Energy is going to be a huge factor. All these different things are coming out of the labs; they’re coming out of American labs. But the problem we have is that, in a lot of these cases, some guy up at corporate says, “Well, you know, we can get it for 20 cents less in China,” but at the same time, there’s that quality issue there. They don’t get the quality. We have an opportunity to do better, and to build the industry up again. I don’t think it’s ever going to be at the level it was, but the size of this industry today is probably five times what it was 15 to 20 years ago overall. The number of board fabricators has been reduced, but the dollar volume of boards consumed is five times what it was 20 years ago – just not here. The shipping costs from Asia are greater; the cost of materials in some of these other countries is going to be much higher; if you have to import something, it’s going to be much higher as well. And since I sell a lot of foreign-built equipment, we have been able to maintain our prices. But I don’t know how long that goes on. If you’re an American manufacturer today and you’ve got your act together, I think there’s some huge opportunities. DD: The biggest effect for me is I’m going to be walking to work. (Laughter) I can’t afford the gas anymore. I think we have a windfall opportunity within the Americas with the cost of the dollar in comparison to the euro. Companies are actually starting to look at the Americas now as a cheap manufacturing source, so to follow on, I think it’s definitely an advantage for those people who have capacity, capability and know-how. With the dollar going down, I think the opportunity for the Americas goes way up. I have a positive outlook for the industry. For me walking to work, that doesn’t look so good. AW: I agree with Doug about fuel costs and material costs. That’s really offsetting any savings; we’re very profitable in Europe right now because of the exchange rate, but the increase in fuel costs and the increase in material costs are really having impact. Considering today’s economy/market, what areas does your company plan to focus on to gain new market share, or is this even a concern for your current marketing strategy? MH: We’re adding engineers; we’re adding technology; we’re trying to become more efficient; we’re trying to really walk the walk. In America, one of the things we do wrong is inspect defects “out.” And yield improvement is probably still a wonderful holy grail in high-mix global manufacturing. If you’re high-mix global, I think it’s much more difficult to see that sometimes. But overall, I think the manufacturing efficiencies of clients can be strongly impacted by using best practices, by basically close attention to process. All these things we were taught as engineers, but unfortunately, with costs the way they’ve been, we haven’t been able to afford enough engineers to do a lot of these things. If you focus on continual improvement, on new markets – solar; eventually nanotechnology is going to present opportunities; energy’s going to present opportunities as time goes on – there are those opportunities right now. SM: We’re a printed circuit design service bureau, and what we’ve done is to expand the offerings beyond printed circuit layout. We’ve hired eight or nine EEs, and we’re doing more product development to offer more things – further in engineering services to help us diversify. We’re also going the other way and doing more turnkey manufacturing … a one-stop shopping approach. We expanded into the West Coast last year, and we’re now the largest design service bureau in North America. I come from 30-odd years as a fabricator and watched that industry dramatically shrink in North America. I don’t want to see those things happening at the design and engineering level. We’re hoping North America tries to keep design and prototype. Many of you have experienced the highs and lows of our changing economy. What are some things your business has done to mitigate these economic issues? Industry People Ovation Products named Neil MacRaild president, responsible for expanding sales channels, broadening the company’s reach and bringing products to market. MacRaild has 20 years’ experience in electronics assembly and semiconductor packaging, and background in operations management, global logistics, engineering and business development. Most recently, he was Americas general manager at DEK. Zestron America named Neil Murphy Northeast sales manager, responsible for products and services. He has a bachelor’s from the University of Massachusetts and 28 years of sales and technical experience in electronics and semiconductor manufacturing. Zestron also named Tiow Ping Sim South Asia sales manager, based in Singapore, responsible for local distributors and customer support. He has a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from the Queensland University of Technology and 15 years’ experience in electronics. Also, Steven Goh was named to the customer support team. 12 Circuits Assembly JULY 2008 circuitsassembly.com http://fih-foxconn.com http://circuitsassembly.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Circuits Assembly - July 2008

Circuits Assembly - July 2008 Contents Caveat Lector Industry News Market Watch Talking Heads Focus on Business Global Sourcing On the Forefront Screen Printing Tech Tips Will Electronics Follow the Sun? ‘Warm’ Manufacturing Heats Up Reputation Trumps Recession, China ‘Web Circuits’ A Novel Non-VOC Conformal Coating Krypton: Benchmarking Customer Satisfaction 2008-09 CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY Buyers Guide Wave Soldering Pb-Free Lessons Learned Process Doctor Materials World SMTA Int'l Product Preview Ad Index Assembly Insider Technical Abstracts

Circuits Assembly - July 2008

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