PCB Chat

We are all familiar with the pros and cons of importing goods from China. China supply chain expert David Alexander discusses pros and cons of doing business in China. David also discusses the lesser known opportunities of exporting US goods to China and China's appetite for western brands. David is founder and president of Baysource Global, company which provides management of offshore factories, US sales and distribution of Chinese products as well as distribution of US products in to China.

Matthew Chalkley has over 26 years of supply chain experience in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. Chalkley has held a number of senior operational management positions within, engineering, manufacturing, materials management, procurement, and customer order fulfillment. Chalkley was the Global Program Manager for IBM’s Supply Chain Social & Environmental Management System and the Global Tactical Lead for IBM’s Center of Excellence for Product Environmental Compliance. Matthew currently chairs the Environmental Sustainable Electronics (ESE) Technical Work Group for iNEMI. Chalkley has a graduate diploma focused in environmental management from the University of Ulster.

The coronavirus may have taken hold around the globe, but you couldn't tell from the latest printed circuit board design software results. ESD Alliance spokesman Wally Rhines discusses the first quarter EDA market statistics with PCB Chat host Mike Buetow.

Benchmark Lark Technology this month opened the doors to its 122,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art factory in Phoenix. The new site is significant because it includes both a fabrication and assembly capabilities, making Benchmark a vertically integrated manufacturer and creating one of the few greenfield fab shops in the US in the past 20 years. PCB Chat speaks with Kevin Walker, product line director, RF & High Speed Circuits at Benchmark Lark, which is a unit of Benchmark Electronics. He has spent more than 30 years in the electronics manufacturing industry, including 10 with Rogers, Dynaco, the flex circuit fabricator, NEE, Micro Systems Technologies, and AVX. He explains the background and strategy behind the new plant, and gives listeners an auditory walkthrough of its features and capabilities.

On this episode of Reliability Matters, Mike Konrad joins Dr. Jennie Hwang, Phil Zarrow, Bob Willis and Ray Prasad to discuss several industry topics including the pandemic, common technical issues, training and support, and other interesting topics.

Dr. Chris Jackson is founder of Acuitas, a company dedicated to electronics reliability. He has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of New South Wales, and a master's and Ph.D. in reliability engineering from the University of Maryland. He is an American Society of Quality Certified Reliability Engineer (CRE), and a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng) from Engineers Australia. ​ He has been senior reliability engineer for the Australian Defence Force, and director and founder of multiple research centers at the University of California Los Angeles. He has authored or coauthored multiple textbooks on reliability engineering and implemented several RAM programs across multiple industries. Chris discusses his five-part article titled "Three Ways to do Reliability Allocation." This article may be viewed here: https://accendoreliability.com/?s=3+Ways+to+do+Reliability+Allocation Additional technical works by Chris may be viewed at https://accendoreliability.com/page/2/?s=jackson

Inspectar is a startup company whose signature product is a tool for fast debugging of electronics hardware. The novel system highlights the nets on a board and captures and shares the metadata with other engineers, regardless of the native tool environment. Mihir Shah (CEO), Darryl Day (CTO) and Matt Noseworthy (CIO) talk about Inspectar’s origins and highlights of the just-released InspectAR 2.0.

Dr. Jennie Hwang's wide-ranging career encompasses international business operations, sustained leadership in worldwide manufacturing and technology services, innovative research, intellectual property management, global leadership positions, as well as corporate and university governance. Dr. Hwang has held senior executive positions with Lockheed Martin. SCM Corp., Sherwin Williams., and was the CEO of International Electronic Materials Corp. as well as co-founded entrepreneurial companies. Currently, her company provides business, technology and manufacturing solutions to the global industry. She has served as an advisor to many Fortune 500 multinational companies, as well as the US government programs. Her formal education includes Harvard Business School’s Executive Program, Columbia University Business School Corporate Governance program, and four academic degrees (Ph.D., MS, MA, BS) in engineering & sciences from Case Western Reserve University, Columbia, Kent State-Liquid Crystal Institute and Cheng-Kung University, respectively. She was the first female to earn a doctorate from Case Western Reserve University's Engineering School - Materials Science & Engineering and has served on the university's board of trustees since 1996.

To execute a business strategy, you need to figure out your talent and people piece. So says Audrey McGuckin, a global HR executive, who for more than 25 years has lived and worked across the globe in Singapore, China, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, France, Spain and the US. Audrey spent more than 20 years at Jabil, rising to vice president and chief talent officer. Today, as head CEO of Audrey McGuckin Talent Solutions, she consults with top CEOs and CHROs to solve complex business challenges through innovative talent and people solutions. Her client base includes a broad spectrum ranging from startups to Fortune 100 organizations. She discusses her approach to helping businesses attract and keep key talent with PCB Chat host Mike Buetow.

The HDP User Group is a nonprofit consortium that conducts electronics manufacturing research. Its members run the gamut of the electronics supply chain, from suppliers of raw materials to fabricators and contract manufacturers to OEMs. John Davignon, a project facilitator with HDP, explains the organization's structure and approach.

Dr. Christopher Tang is a UCLA Distinguished Professor and the holder of the Edward W. Carter Chair in Business Administration and editor of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, the leading journal for the operations management research community. His research spans across different areas including: global supply chain management, retail operations, and social business operations. He has co-authored one book and co-edited four more, and published over 100 academic articles in research journals and management articles in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and The Guardian. He also spent a combined 13 years at HP and IBM in supply-chain management, specializing in lean and just-in-time processes. He offers his view on how the electronics supply chain might respond to the Covid-19 disruption -- and how it might not -- with PCB Chat host Mike Buetow.

With so many people out of work, Reliability Matters speaks with friend and colleague Dr. Mike Stull about entrepreneurship. Dr. Stull is a professor at California State University San Bernardino. He is the director of the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship (IECE) at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB). He also serves as Chair for the Department of Management in the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration and academic director for entrepreneurship.

Keith Bryant discusses the advantages of x-ray technology, its practical uses, and common mistakes made when using x-ray technology. A fully qualified engineer, Keith has over 30 years’ experience in electronics manufacturing. He is well known and respected for presenting technical papers at many high-profile events around the world and for his many published articles and interviews. He started his career in this industry with bare printed circuit boards in the early days of high-count multilayer technology, moving through to running contract manufacturing operations. He had 10 years’ experience with advanced materials and soldering systems before working with high technology x-ray and AOI systems, again for 10 years. Then for almost three years Keith worked as a technology and business consultant, assisting many of the major industry names. From 2017 to 2019 he was global sales director of a leading x-ray manufacturer. Last year reverting to a technology and business consultancy role allowing him to pursue other interesting projects, including i4.0 and working with an advanced x-ray tube manufacturer. Keith was chairman of the SMART Group for 11 years and is now chairman of SMTA Europe, and in 2018 he was presented with the SMTA International Leadership award.

Fireboard Labs is the creator of a cloud-based smart thermometer for kitchens and the grill. A startup -- Fireboard was founded in 2015 -- the company quickly made the decision to build its circuit boards in-house. Ted Conrad, the founder of Fireboard Labs, discusses that decision and lessons learned, plus a breakdown of their signature products, with PCB Chat host Mike Buetow.

Teresa Huber is president and CEO of Intervala, an EMS company based in Pittsburgh. She has a bachelor’s in electrical engineering technology from the University of Pittsburgh, and an MBA in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon. Prior to helping launch Intervala, she was chief executive for TMG Electronics, vice president of operations for the commercial electronics division of LaBarge/Ducommun, chief operating officer of Pinnacle Electronics, and spent 10 years with Sony Electronics in engineering, manufacturing and supply chain, including vice president of operations for Sony’s Pittsburgh Television Group. She explains Intervala's strategy and reasons for acquiring Princeton Technology Corp., its expanding target end-markets, and the M&A environment for EMS companies today.

Do you purchase boards overseas or domestically? What questions should you ask your board vendor? PCD&F/CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY columnist Greg Papandrew answers these and other board-buying questions. Papandrew is cofounder of Better Board Buying and the author of PCB Basics for Buyers.

Some 39 episodes after Bob's first appearance on Reliability Matters he returns to discuss life as a consultant in the electronics assembly industry.