FTG: Focus to Expand

Estimated reading time: 24 minutes

Bourne: We have a broad range of product in a narrow niche of the circuit board industry. If people want to buy industrial boards or telecommunications, we don't do it. If they want to buy an aerospace and defense board, that's us.

Matties: The other thing I know about you is you've brought in the eSurface process and you're making that part of your technology offering. Tell us about that.

Bourne: It's obviously something new. We just announced it in the last month or so. We have worked and cooperated with the people from eSurface over the last three to five years. Our interest there is I am a true believer that ultimately circuit board manufacturing will move to an additive process. I don't know what that process will be, but I know it's going to go there. There are just so many manufacturing processes moving to an additive process. I want to be a player in that. We've talked to lots of different people about lots of different technologies. Some of them are relatively simple. There are lots of people making circuit boards these days where you screen down a layer of silver and that's a circuit board. That's certainly something that's not terribly useful in the aerospace and defense market. It doesn't really have the capabilities, the robustness, or the quality that our market or our customers would need.

We thought eSurface looks like one that should meet the needs of our customers, so we put more effort in working with them. A lot of our customers have already talked either directly to eSurface or talked to us about their interest in this area, so we decided it’s time to engage and to get serious. I honestly don't know where this is going to end up, but what I do know is we're going to work with the guys at eSurface and we're going to work with all our customers. We're already starting to build test panels to understand the capability, understand the benefits, and understand how it can best help our customers meet new challenging requirements for their circuit boards. We'll see where it goes.

Matties: In your early testing, have there been any surprises, either positive or negative?

Bourne: Not yet, in all honesty. We did some work a few years ago, but that was relatively different and kind of very specific opportunities. Our more generic and wide ranging efforts are just underway now. We haven't actually gotten through any final test results with customers to be able to answer that.

Matties: It'll be interesting to pay attention to that and see how it works because it does sound promising if it performs the way it's been reported to.

Bourne: Absolutely. There is no doubt as you move to any additive technology it's going to help shrink the lines and spaces on circuit boards, so the density will be able to increase. That's of interest to all our customers and an interest for any electronic application as electronics just keep getting smaller and smaller. It's got some interesting applications for RF and high-speed signals in that you can better form the traces, you get better wall quality on the traces, and that's what's really critical for some of these high-speed applications. I think there's a couple of areas where I'm pretty sure we're going to see a benefit.

Matties: What's your background?

Bourne: My schooling was in mechanical engineering, so of course I ended up in electronics (laughs).

Matties: Makes perfect sense.

Bourne: Yes, it's interesting how that happens. Really my whole career has been in aerospace and defense.

Matties: On the technical side?

Bourne: Technical and the business side. Officially I've worked as an engineer three months in my career, but I've always had a goal and a dream to be involved in a technology company and be able to apply my technical skills and my business skills—I did a business degree as well—in whatever company I'm involved in. That's my background. I've always been involved primarily and almost exclusively in the aerospace industry.

Matties: That's a great industry to be in.

Bourne: It's been fun, there's no doubt. Right now, a lot of what we do goes into aircraft. I worked in the space part of the aerospace industry and that's a very different type of industry. Even within space I worked in the satellite part of the industry and all different segments as well.

Matties: When a customer comes to you, what's the greatest demand or challenge that they put forth to you when they're looking to qualify you as a supplier?

Bourne: Our customers, as you can imagine, are just truly very demanding, but they have to be. The product that goes into aircraft, there's hundreds of people on it, it's got to be good, it's got to work. Their expectations are very high, but they're high in all aspects of it. They expect perfect quality. They expect 100% on-time delivery because everyone's running ‘just in time’ these days. If a $100 circuit board holds up a $100 million dollar aircraft that's not good for anyone, so delivery is important.

Cost is important. I wish it wasn't, but I've come to realize that every time I book an air ticket I book the lowest ticket I can. I'm like everyone else in the world. I want to find ways to save money and that drives the industry. The whole industry has to keep finding ways to save money in building aircraft. I'm part of that and I realize that.

In the end if you can be 100% on-time, perfect quality, and the lowest price, you have a winning solution. It's hard to do all that.

Warner: Oh, that's all? (laughing)

Matties: That's a tough order. Do customers conduct a lot of audits and that sort of thing? How do they verify what you claim?

Bourne: That's a wonderful topic. I'm actually really proud of FTG on this. One of the things I do claim, and I actually believe this, is that in any day of the year someone is auditing some FTG site. We have audits all the time. We have audits at the government level, some is for military work, but we have our sites approved by the U.S. government to supply military product. You can do it at different levels and different technologies, and we have very wide approval levels with the U.S. government.

There's industry or standards organization qualifications like AS 9100, so we have to have those. There's Nadcap, which is an aerospace process driven certification. We have that. Then every customer who comes in does their own auditing against their system. It's a serious process for going through audits. I actually believe we have the widest overall approvals of any circuit board manufacturer in the world within the FTG sites at the government level, the industry, and the customer level. I am truly proud of that. It takes a huge effort. Audits are not easy. They're usually multi-people over multi-days and they go through everything. In the end, I try to look at audits as if we're getting free consulting. Not everyone agrees with this within FTG, but when an auditor comes in, they go through the system and they identify opportunities for improvement. They might call them ‘corrective actions,’ but in the end they're identifying things you can do better.

Matties: And it makes you a better company, especially if you heed the warnings.

Bourne: Absolutely. We try to take it in that vein. If they've identified something, we try to look at it as something we can do better and make sure we do that. I think it does help the company.

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