Nu Visions Looks Ahead
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
By Gail Stout
Contract manufacturers (CM) generally reflect the OEM businesses they serve. Do most then expect that same slackened growth? Just the opposite occurs at Nu Visions, a company marking a 30 percent increase in business this year.
On August 23, 2001, Nu Horizons Electronics Corp., a New York state distributor of active and passive components, sold its manufacturing subsidiary to certain members of the management team and Golden Gate Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm. What emerged is Nu Visions Manufacturing LLC, a new CM based in Springfield, Mass. It represents about 5 percent of Nu Horizons' approximately $671 million net sales (for the fiscal year ending February 23, 2001). As a CM provider, Nu Visions Electronics had competed with numerous other client board assemblers. Hence, its sale eliminates a potential conflict for Nu Horizons' core component business.
In FY 2000, Nu Visions handled $1 million monthly in production and completed that year with $15 million in sales. That number jumped to $37 million in FY 2001, and for the following period, sales were $46 million. Even though the company considers itself a third-tier CM provider, in the worst year ever for printed circuit board (PCB) assembly it has recorded an unprecedented 30 percent growth. Next year, company managers predict a conservative 20 percent growth.
Even so, it has not been an easy year. Two of the firm's major customers (worth about $8 million in contracts) had no boards to build this year. However, in looking for new business, the company's sales reps and managers successfully added nine new customers this year to maintain the firm's growth.
Nu Visions now has 240 employees; its plant takes up 45,000 sq. ft. after the last expansion. "Right now we're getting ready to expand to a second floor to add 7,000 sq. ft. of offices, conference rooms and customer meeting rooms, as it's less costly to build upwards than to expand outwardly," says CEO Steve Pudles.
Nu Visions has about $6 million in fixed assets, of which 85 percent had been spent in the past two years. "We have 25 customers now," he adds. "If we continue to meet our planned goals and grow the business, including acquisition of other companies, then the market is kind of irrelevant as long as we stay strong."
Secrets of Success How does the company do it? For one thing it offers what many customers need. Of its 240 employees, 35 are in manufacturing, test, quality and documentation engineering groups. This is because many of Nu Visions' customers are military, medical or industrial, and have special requirements for higher levels of technical and documentation support.
The company offers full-service contract manufacturing, including both through-hole and SMT assembly, final product integration, box build, turnkey operation, quick turns, prototyping, and full testing. Nu Visions is ISO 9002 registered and follows IPC-A-610 Revision C manufacturing standards.
"We use statistical process control (SPC) techniques to measure and monitor our processes constantly," says Pudles. "Our employees are trained in IPC-A-610 and other commercial standards including specialized cleanliness standards. We can place components of most any size 0201, fine pitch to under 0.020", BGAs, microBGAs, QFPs, CSP, RF and others" (Figure 1).
Figure 1. An RF unit is built to attach to large mobile equipment for location and to keep repair records.
Company engineers work with customers to determine needs typically in the following manner: If a client needs a particular test strategy, test sets are developed to provide the required coverage and to generate data for continuous improvement. Some of the tests include in-circuit, flying probe, functional and environmental stress. The engineers further assist customers at any point in the design cycle from concept through production; packaging including UL, CSA and CE certification. Both analog and digital languages are spoken here. Through-hole to SMT conversions generally present no problems, and engineers can handle upgrades or redesigns of older products requiring schematic or circuit evaluation.
Lastly, a key to Nu Visions' success is its market niche. The company specializes in the low-volume, medium- to high-mix areas, in which customer contracts are targeted in the $3 to $7 million range. Within that scenario, the medical market is growing steadily while that for military activity recently has expanded rapidly.
The Right StuffOne of the things that stands out when looking at Nu Visions' operation is that it seems to have the right tools for accomplishing all contracted jobs. Workstations are connected by fiber optic lines, making it easy to use video, documentation, designs and other information-intensive applications. Floors are poured, and everyone in the plant wears heel and shoe straps for electrostatic discharge (ESD) control. Equipment lines run down the aisles in an orderly fashion.
"Each time we purchase a piece of equipment we ask what the best value is for our company," explains Pudles. "Right now we can pick up or reconfigure lines to fit our needs if we stick with one reliable manufacturer. We know that eventually we'll need some pieces of equipment, so we're looking for that type of product equipment now. And now is a good time to buy especially used equipment. With some companies, like our supplier of component placement equipment, we know we're going to get good service on their equipment and customer support means a lot."
It appears to be a good time for bargains. With one burn-in environmental test chamber, for example, Nu Visions paid $7,000 for slightly used equipment that would have cost $35,000 new. "We look for ways of speeding up the work," Pudles adds. "Recently we bought four more lines of Juki pick-and-place equipment. At the same time we retrofitted our existing lines with updated feeders."
Figure 2. A feeder cart is loaded up and ready to attach to a pick-and-place unit.
Pudles spoke highly of feeder carts, which he said are great for quick feeding of parts. The units are set up ahead of time according to customer specs. Nu Visions supplies all components and then loads the feeders in any format that works tape-and-reel, stick or waffle pack. Then the loaded carts are stored next to the line for that particular run as needed. Operators roll the carts over to the pick-and-place units and attach them with a corded connector. The feeder teeth on the conveyor then rise and hook into the cart's feeders, starting the action (Figure 2). Each build has its own carts and each cart is marked with a location number.
Figure 3. Several BGAs are placed routinely on double-sided boards.
As boards get more complex, the instruments to build and inspect them get more specialized. Figure 3 displays one example: double-sided boards that feature 12 BGAs. "Product engineering expertise is right here to handle most any challenge," says Bill Cardinal, engineering manager. "To inspect the joints on bumps located on the edge of each BGA, we use the ERSAscope (Figure 4). It's a camera that operates on fiber optics, bending to get a right-angle look on the sides of the BGAs to see if the solder bumps connect both top and bottom. Of course we still perform X-ray inspection afterwards because there are bumps beyond the outer rows. But this is a low-profile, side-angle inspection system that tells if our placements have any coplanarity problems."
Figure 4. A special fiber-optic unit takes a close-up, 90° view of solder bumps on the edge of BGAs.
Approximately 30 percent of Nu Visions' PCB activity remains with through-hole boards. One can see some hand wire bonding going on under a microscope, and employees still pre-trim some leads. On mixed boards, selective-soldering equipment is used to save time where it once took four hours to hand solder an assembly, with selective soldering it takes 20 minutes. A newly ordered selective-soldering machine, for example, is predicted to shorten these soldering times even further.
"We have six pick-and-place lines with vision, three selective-soldering lines, an aqueous cleaner and many types of test both functional and in-circuit," says Pudles. "We also do conformal coating: In some of our industrial markets, such as an RF unit for locating pieces of heavy equipment, conformal coating is a good method for keeping boards clean in dirty applications."
Growth PotentialNu Visions is looking to make acquisitions. "If another [CM] firm meets our high-mix, low-volume, low-run format, we might just expand," Pudles says. "Now, boards come in already designed. We use independent design houses as subcontractors as needed. So we're looking to add more in-house design capabilities through strategic acquisitions."
At Nu Visions, employees act empowered. Management is involved actively at all levels, which contributes to a loyalty and an upbeat "can do" atmosphere that is refreshing, especially in these uncertain times.
Gail Stout, editor-in-chief of SMT Magazine, may be contacted at (603) 891-9395; E-mail: gails@pennwell.com.