Clear communication with manufacturers can ease that queasy feeling.

You are finally finished with that very complex monster of a printed circuit board (PCB) design while enduring a very tight project schedule. Now it's time to get the design data to manufacturing for fabrication and assembly, but there is a lingering doubt in the back of your mind, an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach as you hand off data to manufacturing. Why? I'll explain, based on my perspective gleaned from decades of designing PCBs.

Let me start with a question: Did you collaborate with your manufacturing suppliers up front? The answer for many is typically "No!" You may have simply designed a PCB without any manufacturer involvement whatsoever, generated output files and threw the data over the proverbial wall to the manufacturer in hopes that what you designed is buildable and will work as intended. Then, when a technical query (TQ) hits your inbox, you might get upset and wonder why you're being notified that the job is on hold because the design data contain issues or are missing information that needs to be addressed before fabrication can begin. In some cases, it's not just answering with a reply of "approved to modify as suggested," but rather it requires going back and redesigning! Sadly, this happens in our industry far too often, and in more instances than you would expect.

Manufacturing costs include more than just material, labor and overhead.

Possibly it's because inflation has ticked up over the past year or so, or possibly it's because despite a long career in manufacturing, and I am still not sure all stakeholders from production, sales, customers, suppliers – and especially accounting – really understand or agree, but I find myself now more than ever trying to identify and come to grips with the "real cost" of what I produce.

I am hardly the first to ponder this question. Truth be told, I spent too many years early in my career performing standards engineering and being responsible for product costing. All that experience, I fear, has left me more a skeptic than an expert on product costing. Too many companies in our industry have ended up foundering, in no small part because of their leadership not understanding the real cost of their product.

Are you tapping all the opportunities in your labor market?

For US electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers, the only thing in shorter supply than long lead-time components is labor. Decades of manufacturing job losses translate to a generation of workers who don't consider manufacturing jobs because they don't know anyone in manufacturing. EMS companies are addressing this in multiple ways including job enlargement for existing workers, greater use of automation and closer ties with community colleges. Flexible work schedules better aligned with college student or single-parent schedule preferences have also been successful tactics. In areas with large retired populations, flexible work schedules may also appeal to retirees who are feeling inflationary pressures to re-enter the workforce and want better compensation than found in retail.

The road to resilience for Western manufacturing must begin with small steps.

For more than three decades, leading electronics brands in the West have enshrined leanness, maximum efficiency and lowest cost. The drive to outsource manufacturing to areas where labor costs are lowest has enabled the industry to deliver more advanced electronic products at relatively affordable prices.

It has made perfect sense for the world's OEMs, relieving demand for capital investment and helping to cut costs while giving access to cutting-edge processes and providing rapid, low-risk scalability. The trend to outsource began in the late 1970s and became the dominant model in the '80s and '90s. Throughout the 21st century, this has been the way to operate a competitive supply chain. Now, the largest EMS operations are based in China and Southeast Asia and the sector is currently worth about $800 billion. It's still growing at more than 7% compounded annually.

But something else happened during this transformation. As production migrated geographically, the essential skills associated with designing and making advanced electronics products also moved away from the OEMs and became concentrated in Asia. Many associated industries also moved out. In the 1980s there were 23 full-scale manufacturers of substrate base materials in Europe. Currently, there are two. Similarly, the number of manufacturers of glass and copper foil has fallen from 12 to just one.