Here are prospective buyers’ questions. Do you have the answers? 

If you’re an owner planning to sell your EMS business, here are questions to expect from would-be buyers. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. For those who haven’t been through the process yet, this is a basic primer before striking a deal.

“Can I relocate your business to my own location?”

Prospective buyers want to increase their sales and bottom lines, so many, if not most, buyers are looking for new customers, not real estate or used equipment. If they can move your customer base into their own shop, they can make much of your labor force redundant and maximize their profit. So, depending on the buyer’s intent, this can be the question that makes or breaks the deal.

Changing a stencil printing machine’s conveyor configuration helps make it more efficient.

A well-balanced surface mount line takes into consideration all the equipment comprising it and any indirect factors that affect it. Here we examine stencil printer cycle time (CT).

Internal factors considered for a CT study include conveying time in and out of the machine, stencil and board fiducial recognition, cleaning time, solder paste measurement time, dispensing time, and printing time.

An Ohio community college breaks the mold with an applied bachelor’s degree in electronics manufacturing.

In my three decades in electronics engineering, perhaps the only thing that never changes is the need for more skilled workers. No matter the state of the economy or the geography, having knowledgeable and competent engineers and operators is always critical, and there are never enough of either.

But while the tension is notable between industry and academia over who is responsible for preparing the next generation of workers for specific tasks, some schools are quietly taking the lead by putting in place programs that include true hands-on training in printed circuit board manufacturing.

“Chips don’t float,” the saying goes, but it’s up to the PCB industry to push its message to Washington. 

It’s hard to believe now, but veterans of the printed circuit board industry will remember when the US was neck and neck with Japan as the largest PCB manufacturing market. It peaked in 2000-2001 with sales north of $10 billion each year and close to a 30% share of the overall market.

How things change.

Today, US domestic PCB manufacturing output is around $3 billion, and its share of the global market is in the mid-single digits. Meanwhile, China has surged ahead of the pack, as more than half the bare boards produced each year are built on the mainland. Moreover, nations like Vietnam that didn’t even register a decade ago are now larger than the US market.