-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueIPC APEX EXPO 2024 Pre-show
This month’s issue devotes its pages to a comprehensive preview of the IPC APEX EXPO 2024 event. Whether your role is technical or business, if you're new-to-the-industry or seasoned veteran, you'll find value throughout this program.
Boost Your Sales
Every part of your business can be evaluated as a process, including your sales funnel. Optimizing your selling process requires a coordinated effort between marketing and sales. In this issue, industry experts in marketing and sales offer their best advice on how to boost your sales efforts.
The Cost of Rework
In this issue, we investigate rework's current state of the art. What are the root causes and how are they resolved? What is the financial impact of rework, and is it possible to eliminate it entirely without sacrificing your yields?
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
PCB Fab & the Paperless Office
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
SMT Magazine visits P.D. Circuits, a PCB supply-chain management firm in Hampstead, N.H.
When David Wolff (above) founded P.D. Circuits in 1990 with a partner, he admits that he didn’t know much about circuit boards. Soon Wolff was on a quest to learn all he could about them and the fabrication process. He started at step 1 of the process and worked his way around the shop. Eventually, the group built up trust with customers, and began fabricating boards with a five-day turnaround time. The company’s motto was: “Good boards, on time, and at a fair price.”
View of P.D. circuits’ stock room.
Wolff, now P.D. Circuits’ president, saw an opportunity in the board brokering market. Quick turn-around times and multilayer boards were becoming more essential in electronics manufacturing. Wolff found manufacturing partners with these capabilities, and brokered their boards to the North American market. P.D. Circuits shut down its manufacturing capabilities, keeping only its quality assurance (QA) equipment, and branched out, buying from other U.S. manufacturers. When customers began looking for offshore volume boards, Wolff worked as an international freight forwarder. At the end of 1992, P.D. Circuits chose a partner in Taiwan to manage their Asian business. They then opened a China office in 2006. Currently, the company is a source for single-sided to 44-layer boards; rigid, flex, and rigid/flex boards; and prototype through domestic and offshore production.
David Wolff and Doug MacLean stand in front of the company’s various industry certifications.
P.D. Circuits experienced a growth spurt at the end of 1999, said Wolff. “We had to look at how to grow, but maintain control and the decision-making power,” he noted. Because P.D. Circuits had taken on a distributor role, Wolff realized that software was critical. Managing and maintaining hundreds of accounts and thousands of part numbers would require strict inventory control. With this in mind, he brought Douglass (Doug) MacLean of Ewarenow.com LLC on board to automate the front end. With his expertise in software development and a good business sense, MacLean extended a three-month project into a seven-year stint at P.D. Circuits. “The software has helped with our growth,” said Wolff. “It’s enabled us to double our business with less than 40% increase in staff.” The software is now an integral part of the facility, which is 95% paperless.
QUICK FACTS:All of P.D. Circuits’ employees and independent sales representatives work on its software network - PDC2006. Prior to the paperless system, the company would have about 20 pieces of paper left after finishing a job. Using its software system, they have zero paper to file when a job closes. Here, Andrew D’Agostino, quote department manager, demonstrates the order-fulfillment process. Because employees in both the N.H. and China offices can view the software, it creates supply-chain integration. Everyone in the supply chain can look to see the situation of a particular order - where it stands between P.D. Circuits and its customer - in real time.
But it’s not all just software and boards. P.D. Circuits also verifies a customer’s design schematics upon receipt of an order. In the quality assurance department, they load a board design into the CAM system, print the drawings, and ensure that the design works by verifying the electrical integrity of the board. “If it doesn’t work,” said Wolff, “We’ll give them options to solve an issue.”
null