The source of domestic manufacturing woes is customer service, not offshoring.

I’ve sold PCBs for over 30 years, sourcing boards both domestically and internationally, and I find it much harder to source boards from American manufacturers, not so much because of pricing but because of poor customer service.

Of course, many US-based PCB fabricators meet or exceed customer expectations, but unfortunately, even more American shops struggle to deliver printed circuit boards on time and communicate promptly and effectively with customers. That directly affects their sales performance.

Many domestic manufacturing companies point to offshore manufacturing – with its lower pricing – as the cause of their sales woes. They call for government involvement to level the playing field. While I applaud efforts by PCB industry trade groups to bolster business for US-based PCB manufacturers, government intervention is not a guarantee for growth. No matter how hard the government tries to control business – be it with incentives (rewards) or tariffs (punishment) – board buyers aren’t motivated to do business with firms that lack good service.

Many PCB buyers would like to buy American, even if it means paying more for their boards, but they will not do it if they can’t be certain manufacturers will treat them well. Lobbying the government is expensive and time-consuming. In the meantime, domestic manufacturers should take note of what they can do now to improve their business, while they wait for that government help to arrive.

Government-imposed inflation hurts the overall domestic market.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is considering whether to reinstate Section 301 tariff exclusions that expired late last year on certain Chinese-origin products, including some printed circuit boards.

If granted, the exemption will pertain – as it did before – only to 2- and 4-layer rigid PCBs made of epoxy-glass. The tariff will continue to apply to single-sided and higher-layer counts, flex circuits, and other substrates such as aluminum or ceramic.

While 2- and 4-layer boards represent only a narrow portion of the PCBs manufactured in China, an exemption continuance will provide some relief to many OEM and EMS companies struggling with supply chain challenges.

The tariff aims to encourage “reshoring” by making domestic PCB manufacturing more appealing.

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Buyers will pay more for local products, if only manufacturers were easy to do business with.

In a recent opinion piece in Roll Call, IPC president and CEO John Mitchell – addressing the Biden administration’s willingness to invest mightily in the global chip output – points out it will take this and much more to maintain the US electronics manufacturing industry’s competitiveness.

“The issue,” Mitchell notes, “is that America’s supply chains keep generating problems that frustrate consumers, threaten companies and undermine American competitiveness.”

He hits the nail on the head by calling for a more “holistic” approach and points out that while chips are important, they are just one piece of the puzzle. The printed circuit board, on the other hand, ties together all the components of electronics manufacturing, and that seems to be the greater domestic challenge.

In my opinion, it’s not so much the chip shortage causing the US to fall behind in the technology race. Instead, it’s poor sales management and customer service.

In my long career as a PCB broker, I have been both salesman and buyer; to sell the boards, I had to buy them first. My biggest challenge during that time has been successfully procuring PCBs from our domestic manufacturing industry.

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How well does your incoming inspection team know the acceptability standards?

Does your PCB quality team inspect to pass or inspect to fail? Knowing the difference between what is rejectable in a printed circuit board and what is a nonissue is more important than ever.

Skyrocketing costs, shortages of copper and fiberglass materials, and longer delivery times mean remakes are not available as quickly as before. Rejecting PCBs for things that don’t affect the form, fit or function of the final project is simply bad business.

To be clear, I am not advocating acceptance of substandard product. IPC-A-600 standards are clear as to what is good and what is not. But thanks to lack of training or misinterpretation of industry specs, incoming PCB quality inspectors are turning away perfectly good commercial-grade boards that then must be remade.

The main culprit in this cycle of unnecessary PCB rejection and remake costs is management, which fails to provide adequate training to incoming inspectors and instills in them a fear of releasing bad product to the manufacturing floor.

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