Steve DeCollibus, Managing Editor, Circuitnet

Monday night I sat down to dinner with Dr. Craig Hillman from DFR Solutions. He is here giving what has become, the go to lecture on all things no lead at EMS and OEM enterprises around the world. He and some of his team are also out here seeing what is new in the industry and speaking to customers. We have posted a number of DFR's white papers on Circuitnet and they are attracting a lot of attention and right now hold the record for most downloads.

Customer focus seemed to be the theme of my day as I met up with people who were finishing up their booths for tomorrow's show opening. I had arranged to meet with Sunstone Circuits in the hope of catching up with the team there and to get an update on the concept they announced last year, a one-stop resource for the necessary knowledge, capabilities and expertise needed to produce a printed circuit board (PCB), called ECOsytem. Terry Heilman their President and CEO was very animated in his description of this unique new approach to what we called virtual integration.

This system breaks down traditional barriers in the PCB prototype design, manufacture and assembly process by providing a collaborative, open environment in which any PCB designer, vendor or supplier can easily participate. In the past large OEM's controlled product manufacturing in vertically integrated factories that did everything needed to produce products.

As most of us know the skill sets for producing good circuit boards with high yields dissipated throughout the industry and numerous companies became involved in the process, today a product engineer functions as a project manager and attempts to recreate this capability in an outsourced environment. What Terry and his team have done is linked together that skill set with a group of partners whose philosophy and belief in customer service match Sunstone's. This results inhighly reliable designed for yield products and first time working prototypes.

They are pioneers in cyberspace in that many of their tools are available to customers on line in a very smooth working website that in my mind is setting industry standards for its effectiveness in giving customers what they need to be successful within the ECOsytem. You will be hearing more about Sunstone Circuits in the years to come they have truly figured out the key to success is not just helping customers, it's about getting involved with customers and solving their very real problems.

The Sunstone team from left to right; Nolan Johnson, Bob Schnyder, Terry Heilman and their partners, Gerald Stoehr from screaming circuits and Joe Zaccari from Stillwellbaker, Inc.

Rick Short from Indium and I tried to figure out what the next step for internet publishing would be, needless to say he is well ahead of that curve and building up Indiums electronic communications channel in a very powerful and effective way. The impetus for this is built around supporting known customer needs, not internally defined customer needs.

Mark Peo, President of Heller Industries and Bob LaPage sales manager at Ultrasonic Systems Inc. both had completely booked customer meeting beginning at the opening of the show on Tuesday right up till the close of the exhibiton Thursday. Other exhibitors I spoke with were not as optimistic as Mark and Bob and we will be tracking there impressions over the next few days.

Blake Kirby, President of Inovar a successful contract manufacturing company in Logan Utah, said "We are pleased that the show has moved to Las Vegas, I have several company managers with me and we are here to look at and evaluate pick and place systems, reflow oven technology and automatic inspection equipment. We are looking forward to a great show".