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FAQ: Qualifying Fabricators with Kelly Dack
December 18, 2013 |Estimated reading time: 1 minute
Kelly Dack, a senior PCB designer for a gaming technology company, is always on the lookout for good fabricators, occasionally conducting site visits to gauge a manufacturer’s qualifications and capabilities. We asked Kelly to give us a rundown on his process for qualifying fabricators, and some of the criteria he uses.
Andy Shaughnessy:How do you identify a potential new bare board supplier? How do you narrow the field?
Kelly Dack: I stay in touch with the industry. I go to electronics trade shows where I can meet, talk, see, touch, learn, and compare. When I can’t travel, I read the trade publications and refer to their advertising to monitor who’s out there and what they are doing. I find the online directories of PCB service suppliers very helpful.
I get a chuckle when using an online service like The PCB List to search for a supplier. It’s very comparable to how my single co-workers describe searching for a partner on Match.com, and just as easy! Like a dating site, The PCB List’s search attributes of board type, market, region, company type, and industry can match a customer’s needs with a PCB fabricator capabilities. So whether “speed dating” on-site at a trade show or utilizing the Internet, I’ve made quite a few matches out there using these methods and I’m happy to report that our relationships are still going strong!Shaughnessy: What are some of the criteria you have in mind when you look at a new fabricator?
Dak: The capability/cost ratio is key. It is important to note that when a PCB designer goes searching for a PCB supplier partner, it is usually to fulfill a prototype requirement costing hundreds or thousands of dollars. PCB prototype designs are usually ordered in small quantities at a higher price per unit. Quick-turn requirements of hours, days or weeks are common. In a parallel universe, production fabrication suppliers are usually courted by a company’s supplier management group. Selecting a production supplier involves a different set of criteria: lowest cost per unit, higher manufacturing volumes and scheduled deliveries. Third-party EMS assembly suppliers spend millions.Read the full Q&A here.Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the November 2013 issue of The PCB Design Magazine.