It’s Only Common Sense: AI Makes Preparation Easier and Excuses Harder
Happy’s Tech Talk #50: Start Your Digitalization Strategy With Automation
The Chemical Connection: A Few Things That Still Scare Me
Throughout the years, I’ve met many people in the PCB industry and made good friends. George is one of those; we see each other once or twice a year, usually at an IPC meeting, and we catch up or reminisce. This time, after filling me in on his company, George wanted to talk about his subcommittee and what they have accomplished in a relatively short period of time. Their modus operandi of conference calls on a biweekly basis may be of interest to other committees and subcommittees that want to improve their turnaround time and get something done quickly.
Patty Goldman: Hi George, it’s good to see you, as always. Let’s start with you telling me a little about Uyemura, and then we’ll talk about your subcommittee work.
George Milad: As you know, Uyemura is a Japanese company, and I work for Uyemura USA, which is a separate profit/loss center. We don’t get any credit for any activity going into China, Taiwan, Korea or Japan, so we are strictly U.S.focused. Our customers are ours and we like to serve our customers ourselves. We do not rely on outside people for service or for sales—we are direct. I would dare say that we are one of the few companies that are totally focused on the U.S. market. For our big competitors, the U.S. market for them is a very tiny part—most of their profit/loss comes from the Far East, so we differ in that way. We have 75 people who work in R&D and that is where everybody starts at Uyemura.
Goldman: Where is the R&D centered?
Milad: The R&D is in Hirakata, Japan, at our central research labs. Everybody who gets into Uyemura spends their first years in R&D. If they are good at talking they go into sales. If they are good at tech service they go to tech service, but they all go through R&D. They put out a ton of products. We are always inundated with new products. I have six immersion golds, five different electroless nickels, and so on. They keep putting out products and it’s difficult for us to go in and tell the customers, “We have a new product. Stop using this product and use the new one.” [laughs] It actually does not work like that. We always support our original product. If you are using a product that we sold you ten years ago and you want to continue to use it, we will continue to support you.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the December 2015 issue of The PCB Magazine.
