Streamline Circuits: The Importance of Being a Sales-Driven Organization

Estimated reading time: 20 minutes

Doslak: That's right.

Warner: Something you're saying hits home for me. A while back, when I was selling bare boards, I got heavily involved in RF, microwave and millimeter wave technologies. What I found surprising about that, after selling bare boards for 16-plus years, was that it was dramatically different! With high-speed product, it is not just like, “Here's the design, here's the print, here's the specs, build it.” Suddenly, we must think about how that board is going to perform, and then make sure as a board manufacturer we don't do things that are detrimental to that all-important performance. From how we clean the boards, to the way we etch, the way we drill and fill holes, etc. Everything in the bare board manufacturing processes seems so critical to speed these days. Are you feeling that, too, where you must think so much more about how the board performs, rather than just making a mechanically sound and accurate build-to-print circuit board?

Doslak: Yes, and obviously, everything from the copper to the glass and resin. You're starting to hear about custom design material called flat glass, or they call low-pro (low profile) copper. There are so many things now that we must take into consideration, from the inside of the board, from a materials standpoint, but also even to the finishes that we support. I have seven surface finishes in house, including hard and soft gold, immersion gold, silver, ENIG, and ENEPIG, which seems to be a hot one right now, inexpensive finish for wire bonding. We also are stocking up to 75 different material types to fine tune the sweet spot of what the customer is looking for. Streamline takes pride in our extensive engineering experience in high-speed materials and our proactive scaling software to deliver the most consistent product. Obviously, having certain surface finishes in-house allows us to be even more consistent in quality from lot to lot, and to get the performance that the customer needs today.

Warner: Do you get involved in consulting on what those finishes are, or are you counting on the OEMs to read data sheets and talk to chemical suppliers to know what finishes they're looking for?

Doslak: Yes, I'm on the road quite a bit doing tech seminars to talk about different solutions based on the products that they're developing. If I'm building product, especially in some of the higher speed or RF markets, a lot of these pieces of equipment that we bought that can do high-density products, but ultimately our goal is that they produce very consistent product. I do not have to worry about over-etching or under-etching, or poor imaging, or inconsistent imaging. All of this comes down to not only being able to build the product, but being able to verify that we built it correctly. A 2-mil trace is a 2 mil trace. That's where you need to be able to do it right every time, and if not, you need to be able to have your process in control to be able to catch things that aren't consistent.

Warner: That consistency is subject-in-itself. I know I've talked to some of the brightest high-speed RF engineers in the country that have told me, "We can accept anomalies in your process if it's the same anomaly every time!” I don't think that all board manufacturers understand that the inherent inconsistency of board fabrication (many of which are allowed for and are within IPC standards) can cost customers tens of thousands of dollars, because the engineers don't catch these subtleties until after the board is assembled. What are you doing to ensure that consistency? I know that's a loaded question. (Laughs)

Doslak: I'll give you a good example. When we actually build a product, we put about five years of effort into a front-end tool that allows us to have a closed-loop system. We have taken 10 years of our stack-up history from 75 different material types. Every time I build a customer’s product, I will use a scatter gram (Inspecta) that will measure all innerlayer movement on the material after lamination, whether it's a hybrid or a pure pack, and it will give a image of the movement on all locations, and then I can feed that back into my proactive process. What this does, is it allows me to fine-tune my capabilities or my knowledge of these types of products.

If I have a board that has meg-6 outer layers with FR-4 innerlayers, I’ve run enough product to know what's going to happen to those cores and based on my scaling software’s history, I then can rescale. The closed-loop system that we have will tell us in fact what the movement is. It's a full circle of data to allow me to be consistent from lot to lot, and improve from revision to revision. You can buy the equipment to do the inspections, but you really need the knowledge and the experience for what our challenges are when we talk about lamination and registration.

Warner:  It always comes down to accurate measurement and good solid data, doesn’t it?!

Doslak: Right, and then not to mention on the back-end, let's say I do have a shift on a multi-lam board, and now because of the new technology, the laser direct imaging units, I can now match my real difficult inner layers to match my outer layers, because I do foil construction. Now, because I have data imaging instead of film, I can now adjust my outer to match those tough innerlayers that might've shifted, so again, one more chance of getting more precise registration.

Warner: Boy, boards have changed in our lifetime, haven’t they, Tom?

Doslak: That's for sure. I interview sales guys now, and I mention terms like micro BGA or blind/buried, and they look at me and say, "What?" It has changed quite a bit in the last five years.

Warner: The days of four- and six-layer boards straight-up with no sequential lam, with no mixed materials are long gone, but it sure keeps us on our toes. These days, as a senior VP of sales, how do you bring your product and services to market? Do you prefer to use direct sales people, reps, or both?

Doslak: The way I look at it is I do both. You have your guys that know boards, that want to sell boards, and I also try to obviously train within for new sales people just out of college. A lot of my guys over the years have gone through different training programs, but I always teach new folks how to work hard, learn the technology and understand that knowledge is ultimately power in this business.

Then I also have the people that have been doing boards for a while and who have the long term relationships. I currently have about 45 sales folks that are on the street selling, and since we are a full-service manufacturer, we do two layers on up to 70 layers. My average layer count is about a 12-layer, and I offer all technologies. That's the nice thing. I'm not looking for certain technologies. Yes, I can do the most advanced, but it's only 40% of my business. Yes, I can do Class 3 Aerospace, but that's only 30% of my business. It gives my sales guys a pretty big toolkit to go out and offer a full services solution.

Warner: It sounds like a solid model. Something caught my ear a moment ago. You mentioned something about training. At I-Connect007, we recently did a poll on sales, and I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that nearly all respondents said that no training is provided for their sales people. I sold boards for many, many years. They tend to throw us into the deep end of the ocean, perhaps throw us a good book or two, and then you perform or you don't.

Doslak: PCB 101, right? That book is still floating around, right? [Laughs]

Warner: Yep, it’s a classic—Dan Beaulier and Bob Tarzwell’s book. Besides just getting people up-to-speed technologically, is there anything you do to help improve your salespeoples' skills on how to prospect, on how to sell a product line, or accountability? How do you manage leading your team?

Doslak: Obviously, I have different ways that I do it, based on the person, but ultimately, the number one job is for them to build their own board, because it builds confidence. It helps them talk to designers that might be smart with an MBA, but they've never actually built a board. My sales guys can talk to the process, and talk to issues and possible solutions. It builds confidence when you can say, "Hey, you know what? I did this, and I can tell you this is why we want to do it this way," versus somebody that reads a book.

Warner: What about pure sales skills? You’re talking about the technological side, but what about when you hire a salesperson? I think that most people assume, when they hire salespeople who have been around for 10, 20, 30 years, that they know how to sell, or they wouldn't be doing it anymore! Is there anything specific, or tools that you provide for your sales team, that helps them become better salespeople?

Doslak: For me, all my salespeople have adopted different sales techniques, whether it's classes with Dale Carnegie or something else. For most of my new salespeople I have what I call the hot seat. That is a seat right outside my office, and when I hear them make calls, I'm obviously critiquing and I'm doing things to help them for the future. They take me on every call and I walk through the facility with them on surveys or customer visits, just because I feel repetition is the key to success, knowledge is power, and that practice makes perfect. Ultimately, they're going to get it, or they're not going to be here.

For me, I wouldn't be one of the majority owners of this company if I didn't make the extra effort to know the process, equipment, and the overall manufacturing solution. I think I was more interested in doing more for myself and for the company. I truly feel you create your own luck, and I think that's why I am an owner. Ultimately, you get what you put into life. Everyone can learn this technology, if they really wanted to, by spending more time in the facility and understanding what is going on.

Warner: Well, I think our readers will enjoy hearing your perspective. Is there anything else you want to share, philosophically, about what it takes to succeed in this industry today or is there anything I might've missed?

Doslak: I would say ultimately being a sales-driven company is the key to success. We have been doing this for 25 years for three companies by being sales-driven, never saying no, and always pushing ourselves to learn and build new technology. I think about the first multi-lamination build that I did seven years ago. We failed. But by not giving up and not saying no, and supporting those early customers in this technology, I'm able to do what I do today—nine lams plus. Ultimately, being a sales-driven company is the key to success in our business versus someone that only wants a 4–10-layer product, and it's got to fit within this technology box and so on.

Warner: Tom, thank you again for your time and sharing your experience and insights.

Doslak:  My pleasure, Judy. Thank you.

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