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P. D. Circuits Discusses Supply Chain Challenges
July 24, 2008 |Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
David Wolff, President and Founder of P. D. Circuits Inc., discusses the company's "from the ground up" approach to managing supply chain data. As a distributor of bare boards, P. D. Circuits interacts with customers as well as suppliers, and manages domestic and offshore operations, with offices in Taipei, Taiwan and Shenzhen, China, supporting business. With the influx of environmental legislation such as RoHS, supply chain transparency has come to the forefront.
Q: Which new product developments, services and technologies in the electronics sector has P. D. Circuits been focusing on in the past year? A: Over the past year, we've been focusing on implementing the expansion plans for our China operation. Our customer base has a very wide range of technology and volume requirements. To support those requirements and our overall growth in sales, we have increased the number of our approved manufacturing partners in China. We also have added staff to the China office to support the increased activity, with most of the additions being in engineering and quality assurance. All of our China Inspectors have become IPC600 certified in the past year. From the technology side, we see many of our customers moving toward more blind and buried vias, via-in-pad and HDI, so we have added manufacturing partners with these capabilities to our supply base.
Q; Why is P. D. Circuits so important to the current electronics industry? What do you provide that competitors cannot? A: P. D. Circuits is one of the few companies in our industry that provides complete, bare PCB supply chain management services. Most companies in the industry focus on only a small part of the supply chain, such as only providing prototypes and small runs or only supporting offshore production. P. D. Circuits covers the entire spectrum of the bare board supply chain. This includes providing our customers with material selection and engineering support, matching the customers' needs with the appropriate qualified fabrication facility (domestic or offshore), quality assurance, logistics and inventory management. While a few of the very large companies in our industry can afford to have their own PCB supply chain teams, most OEMs and CMs cannot support such a staff. To our customers, we are their PCB supply chain team. We handle anything relating to bare boards so that they can focus on their core competency to support their customers. We allow the smaller players to have the bare board management that the larger players have, without the burden of the huge overhead that is needed to support a PCB supply chain team.
Q: How has supply chain management changed in the past few years and how has P. D. Circuits changed in response? A: It is impossible to discuss supply chain management in the bare board industry without focusing on China. I think that China both amazes and confounds many Western companies. The speed of the shift to China over the last few years has been incredible. The entire center of gravity of our industry has moved from North America to Asia, including everything from raw materials to the highest levels of fabrication. P. D. Circuits anticipated this shift and implemented moves to take advantage of this shift.
We began operations in Asia at the end of 1992 when we started sourcing boards from Taiwan. In 2001, we began sourcing boards from Mainland China. In the past few years, with the huge advances of the industry in China, PDC has shifted a majority of its work and resources from North America and Taiwan to China. This includes building our operation in Shenzhen.
Q: Briefly describe PDC2006, the company's proprietary software system. What advantages does this provide customers? A: PDC2006 is our custom Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. It started as a $3,500, three-month project that we are now eight years and $1 million in to--and it is worth every penny that we have invested in it. The software is comprised of two major modules. The first can be described as the transactional engine. This is the module where activity occurs and is broken down into sub-modules. It allows us to complete large numbers of transactions quickly and accurately with as few people as possible. The sub-modules include part data, quote and cost activity, job set up, open order management, quality control data input, shipping and receiving and inventory tracking. The second major module is the report generator. It takes the mountains of data that we amass and creates reports that provide accurate data that allows us to make business decisions based on hard numbers and facts, not "gut feel" or hunches.
Q: How has RoHS and lead-free affected P. D. Circuits? A: RoHS has been a huge benefit to P. D. Circuits. While it does not apply to our military and many of our medical and industrial control customers, the majority of our customers must abide by the directive. I have to give credit to one of our sales managers, Steve Kjellman, for seeing the opportunity value of RoHS for P. D. Circuits. In the early stages of the RoHS discussion, Steve correctly anticipated that many OEMs and CMs would have a hard time understanding the impact of RoHS on their boards. Working with our Technical Director Bruce MacDonald, who has a strong background in resin systems, Steve created a presentation that helped our customers and prospects understand the impact of RoHS well before the directive took effect. This not only helped our current customers benefit from RoHS, but also helped turn a large number of prospects into customers.
Q: How does the rest of 2008 and into 2009 look for P. D. Circuits? Will there be any new business, technical, facility, or structural developments coming down the pike for PDC? A: For the remainder of 2008 and into 2009, the plan is to remain on our current path. Our China expansion will continue. By the end 2008, we will have our lab completed in China. This will mirror our lab facility in New Hampshire and give us the ability to verify that our requirements are being met as close to the source as possible. Sales growth for 2008 will be about 25% and we plan to at least match that in 2009 by moving up the scale of technology. To support that growth, we will be adding staff both in the U.S. and China.About P. D. Circuits
P. D. Circuits provides electronics OEM and EMS companies with a uniquely comprehensive approach to satisfy PCB needs. P. D. Circuits manages the entire spectrum of requirements from design for manufacturing support to prototype and production. With P. D. Circuits, there's no juggling multiple suppliers, no retooling when going from prototype to production and no headaches when taking advantage of off shore cost savings. Instead, with superior quality, delivery, service and price, customers enjoy an exceptional level of value.
The experienced circuit board professionals of P. D. Circuits match customer needs to the core competence of fabrication partners in North America and Asia. Offices in mainland China and Taiwan help to ensure the continued success of the company's 14 years of off shore sourcing. The company manages the entire process of engineering, customer service, quality control and inventory management from its facility in New Hampshire. For more information, visit http://www.pdcircuits.com/.