Category: Opinion
I Can’t Prove It, But I Know That It’s True
How many times have you felt something in your gut that you know it’s true but there is no good way to prove it? You just have a sense, a feeling, an intuition, that what you are thinking is right but there is just no way to prove it. So, with that in mind here are some things that I […]
10 Things Great Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) Companies Do
The most important space in electronics these days is contract manufacturing. As more of our OEM’s become innovation, and marketing companies, they look to the contract manufacturers to build their products. Just about every company from Apple, to Intel, has yielded the manufacturing of their products to contract manufacturers. And, it is often the company with the best price who […]
Does Your Plant Look As Good As You Think It Does?
It’s all of those little things that make a big difference How good do you think your company is? How do you think you’re doing? What do you do well? What do you need to work on? What do you people think when they walk into your lobby? These are questions you should be asking yourself at all times. You […]
The Other Side Of The Story
We ended last week’s column with a group of designers from a high-tech company asking me the ignoble question, “Why do all PCB shops suck?” And, I promised, I would not only address that question but also explain why there are two sides to that story. First, let me say that the designers who asked me the question work for […]
A Frustrated PCB Customer Speaks Out
I recently got an e-mail from a good friend of mine. He has been in the industry even longer than I have, and that’s a really long time. He works for one of the most high-end defense and aerospace companies in the world. His company has also used their technology base to branch out and get involved in other high-tech […]
Marketing Your Contract Manufacturing Company
Does anybody know your name? Unlike PCB shops where there are now less than 200 left in North America, there are well over 1000 contract manufacturers of all shapes and sizes. Everyone knows the big guys from Celestica, to Flextronics, to Sanmina to Plexus all of them doing hundreds of millions to billions of dollars, but what about all the […]
Better Relationships With Your PCB Vendors Will Yield Better Boards
We have talked a lot in this column about how board shops should treat their customers. How they should try to get to know their customers and their needs. So now let’s switch things around and talk about how customers should treat board shops, how they should work with board shops to get the best products and the best performances […]
Training The Youngsters: Show Them The Possibilities
There is no doubt there is a shortage of young people in our business. As we all get older, the challenge of finding young people to replace us is getting more severe. Last week in this column, we talked about finding young people in our own organizations and then nurturing them to become an integral part of our companies. So, […]
Rethinking Our Approach To Rep Firms
When are PCB shops going to get it? I send a lot of my time helping board shops with their rep issues. I spend a lot of time trying to convince these shops that they are going to have to change the way they handle their rep relationships and start treating them as partners rather than second hand citizens if […]
Building Leaders
The hottest topic on the PCB circuit these days is the lack of young people in our industry. As the rest of us get older, it is finally occurring to us that there is no one following in our footsteps, there is no one there to fill our shoes, when we decide enough is enough. Thinking about this the other […]
