The Newest Flex Shop in the U.S.

Estimated reading time: 27 minutes

Matties: For you, it's not so much about automation and investment, it's about process step reduction, I would think then.

Lencioni: Yes, Orbotech has got new imagers out there that will image both sides at one time. It will actually take the panel, flip it, and then image the other side, which is exciting. It would take us one less handling step. Little things like that. We're seeing micro advances that will eventually find their way to us.

Matties: Do you find when you look at your data that there's a particular area where you have the greatest amount of yield reduction or loss because of handling?

Lencioni: It's broad across the board. Definitely how we CO-BRA Bond® things and how we image things are probably some of our biggest challenges. We're taking in and cleaning those materials and we're still doing things with leaders. I hope the next-generation equipment can handle one-mil core pieces of material without them falling into the machine. Putting leaders on and taking them off is taking up time and space in the machine because you can't run panels next to each other. Then handling and pulling the tape off of the leader creates a potential defect of stretch or wrinkles in handling. Fingerprints have always been something any board shop struggles with. We've really done a lot to ensure people understand that fingerprints are the death of us all. They get into the substrate and sometimes you can't get it out. You'd think copper surfaces would be the one you’d be worried about, but for us it's the Kapton® surface on the outside. We run panels through a plasma process to clean the surface after laser processing and stuff or if we've gone down to open up a coverlay. When there is a fingerprint on a Kapton layer, all of a sudden it magically appears during the plasma process. It really is a cosmetic defect at the end of the day, but our customers see that it etches in, and they don't want the parts.

It is little things like that you discover when you are producing parts that are different than in a rigid board environment. It's really specialized, and that's why a lot of companies try to get into flex circuits and end up failing miserably. I can't tell you how many customers we get because a rigid shop told them they could do their flex circuits, messed them up completely, and then we're in the rescue business trying to turn them around and get their confidence in flex circuits built back up. What's happening now is every product is getting a flex circuit introduced to it. Typically a rigid board manufacturer gets questioned by the customer saying, "Hey, I have these flex circuits these engineers are designing, can you get them done?" And of course, because it is a very profitable market segment, a lot of those manufacturers are dying to get into our market share.

So they are giving it a try, but unless they have specialized tooling and understand the process they are going to struggle. You'll find out eventually that maybe it doesn't mix in well with the rigid board business. We see that problem quite often.

Matties: It's also hard to compete with 30 years of experience.

Lencioni: Yes, there is a lot of tribal knowledge, some of it is hard-coded in. Things we've learned, and making sure that things are produced consistently. At the end of the day, it's about consistency.

Matties: What's your best memory of circuit board manufacturing?

Lencioni: Barry, there are so many over the years such as our new facility but what stands out the most is my direct interaction with our people. Let's see, we recently brought back the beer bust. We actually had a party resulting from our best grossing quarter when we had our first three million dollar month. A lot of companies have shied away from people celebrating things, especially with beer or alcohol. They see it as a liability. We enjoy ourselves here at Lenthor, and so we had a nice beer bust last Friday to celebrate the good things. We had it catered with a barbecue company and they cooked ribs and chicken. Everybody celebrated and we had a moment to reflect back on a good time. It's really about enjoying those things. We try to celebrate birthdays for our people, and every time we hit a milestone. For example, moving this factory was a huge process and something to celebrate.

Matties: It’s probably no easy undertaking. We were talking to one of your quality people, and they said it took two years of paperwork?

Lencioni: Moving a factory is not for the faint of heart. If you have a budget, you probably need to double it because of unforeseen contracting. When you contract to build out a fab, there are so many unknowns. I was very particular about how things were going to be put in place, the location and how it looked and felt and where the window locations were. But even though an architect may get your best intentions on a drawing and the contractor bids it for that drawing, we still had over 150 change orders. Those just add on to the bill. We went a million dollars over budget just in change orders, because I wanted it to look and feel a certain way at the end of the day.

Matties: It looks great.

Lencioni: At the end of the day I got the glass windows I wanted and all the windows lined up perfectly down the pipe. I’m a little feng shui-ish, so the carpet had to flow a certain way and people's desks had to face a certain way in order to get good energy.

Angela Alexander: It definitely has a good feeling here; it's light and airy.

Lencioni: You’ve got to have well-lit areas. I was real picky about the color of the floors and the grit in the floor so people wouldn't slip and slide. For example, this floor here is a very vibrant blue. First, I wanted to have these types of floors throughout the factory, and then I got talked out of it. Someone said, "No, that's too bright. It will be too much." Then we put the first floor in and all of the sudden everybody said, "Oh, can I have my floor like that?"

This floor color is like a swimming pool in a certain sense. We wanted it that way so that for the people who have to pay attention to details it's an exciting room to be in. They have to be alive, because it's kind of a bright room.

Matties: It looks really good. You've done a great job, and you're right Angela, you feel the energy as you walk through.

Lencioni: Our customers that come in say they get a warm fuzzy feeling, and our goal when a customer comes in is for them to not leave without placing an order. They go, "Yeah, we want our stuff built here." Then it is for us to transition them from their current supply base and bring them in. When they come through and they see the systems in place, they look at the people who are supporting them and the longevity of our management team and workforce, they know they've got a good stable structure and that their boards will be predictable when they get them.

Alexander: I was impressed with the staff. I haven't even talked to that many, but the employees were all very busy doing their jobs and they all were smiling.

Matties: Right, they were all engaged.

Lencioni: We let our customers engage with our employees all the time, talk to them, and ask them what's going on in the process. We have several customers that have their own badges. They come in, look at the process, verify, touch and feel. It's always a trust-but-verify process.

Matties: Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you feel we should?

Lencioni: Gosh, if I look at the industry, I think it's sad to see that we don't have enough new equipment coming into it. It’s a very limited base of drill manufacturers and conveyorized manufacturers. IPS may be the only domestic company building stuff. With most of the supply base being located internationally It becomes a whole different set of challenges, because when their equipment breaks you have to fly parts in from Singapore or different parts of the world, and you're down two or three days. If you have a domestic supplier with good parts management, they can get a pump in real quick or a nozzle or things that are important for that tool. It's important to get us back up to speed quickly.

The thing that interests us is the whole printed electronics market. We don't know where that's going.

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