Discussing SEL’s Strategy

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

The Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) leadership team made some far-reaching decisions in the past decade: They opted to build their own captive PCB fabrication facility in Moscow, Idaho, and they decided to utilize zero-discharge processes. Now the facility is up and running and the state and local officials are firmly on SEL’s side, thanks in large part to the green processing, not to mention the employment opportunities.

We recently interviewed David Whitehead, CEO of SEL, and asked him to discuss his process for developing a business strategy. He explains how a company’s core values inform its strategy, the need to understand your customers’ needs, and why building your own PCBs makes sense in these times of supply chain disruptions.

Barry Matties: Why don't we start with your core values, and how those really are the foundation to strategy?

David Whitehead: In the early days of the company, Ed Schweitzer wrote down our principles of operation, about eight pages front and back, and really described the way we want to operate the business. There were about 25–30 employees at that time. Now we have 6,300 employees all over the world, and we maintain that original culture and strategy across the company.

The very first part of those principles of operation are our nine values. The first two, quality and customer focus, really set the tone for how we do business. Every product and service we develop will be high quality. Our strategy around customers begins with how we will provide what we call PQFIDS—price, quality, features, innovation, delivery, and service.

That equates to the value that we'll provide to our customers. It must be all six of these criteria, which is really valuable to our employee owners, and our customers.

To read this entire conversation, which appeared in the August 2023 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.