Anthony Ambrose, President & CEO, Data I/O Corporation

OEMs looking for on-shore, low- to mid-volume contract manufacturing (CM) partner have a lot of options when it comes to printed circuit board assembly or box build services. One thing they may not think about is the importance of finding a CM partner that has an in-house design team.

As a CM, we work with many OEMs who bring us their designs to manufacture. Our design team will usually meet with the customer’s engineers to review the product before we start. Almost every time, we can identify where small design changes can make the product better, smaller, more reliable, cheaper, and easier to manufacture. We often find solutions to problems the customer did not think could be solved.

It's not that we're smarter than our customers' engineers. It's just that we see many different projects through design and manufacturing in a year, whereas they may be working on one or two core products for their company. That gives us a different and usually broader base of experience to draw from. We respect their expertise and are happy to complement it.

For 2020, Z-AXIS will continue to invest in manufacturing equipment such as additional SMT lines. We will continue to refine our innovative manufacturing processes such as laser depaneling and robotic conformal coating. This equipment lets us stay ahead of our customers' needs. And we continue to emphasize our design engineering services, and a collaboration with our customers that is truly unique in the industry.