Modern manufacturing methods

PCB manufacturers in the industrialised nations are coming under severe pricing pressure from the Pacific Rim countries as PCB buyers realise that consistent product can be brought in consistently cheaper. When the eastern bloc countries sort themselves out, which they will do, the problems will get even worse because they are closer. On the face of it, the low to medium technology companies are in terminal decline. Manchester Circuits decided to go for product differentiation rather than try to make cheap product cheaper than the Chinese. It was decided to concentrate on doing those things which conventionally other people did not want to do: make one-offs, offer a very high speed service, use complex or difficult to handle materials, manufacture very complex product with low yields, manufacture very high tolerance product, try to do all this to international standards. The defence and aerospace sectors fit the profile particularly well as do R & D orientated groups or companies. It was considered that three simultaneous schemes had to be successfully implemented: the introduction of a computer integrated (aided) manufacturing [CI(A)M] facility, particularly at the front end of the business; an advanced manufacturing facility to produce the product using the CI(A)M database; and a modern product and process control measurement system using statistical process control (SPC) and related techniques