Dee Claybrook, President & CEO, Rapid Tooling Inc.

Our company is differentiated through the synergy that we bring through our Stencils, Solder products, and Technical Support. We offer technical solutions to our customers and are always willing to innovate in order to meet their needs.

I am not really in touch with future plans for releases of new products, expansion into new markets, or plans for new employees. I have heard some second hand information about these type of plans.

. As you know, we are introducing the new 3D laser and MID circuitry early next year.
. Dinesh is working on improvements to WS888 solder paste. We may have a high performance water soluble, lead free paste to release later in 2015.
. Chris Lawson is working on improvement of our solder manufacturing capacity through machine upgrades.
. With the increased sales volume of solder paste to Acuity Brands Lighting, we will most likely have to add personnel and equipment in solder paste manufacturing. I have not heard whether we are planning this.

My expectations for the industry in 2015 are similar to what has occurred in the last few years. Lead-free products will continue to replace leaded products. In the USA, wave soldering is slowly being replaced by Selective soldering, especially for low volume, high mix production lines. Electronic devices will continue to become smaller, driving the need for improvements in the SMT process.

Stencil Nano-coatings are one way of widening the printing process window. The industry has a need for several technologies: liquid fluxes designed for selective soldering, no clean solder pastes that are easily cleanable, and environmentally stable solder pastes with long stencil life.