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Focus on Business

Sue Mucha

Or how not to make a (potential) problem bigger than it is.

As I write this (Feb. 28), the spread of Covid-19 within the US is still very limited in terms of numbers of confirmed cases. That said, it is already creating a large body of communications lessons to be learned that will remain relevant a month from now.

The stock market has tanked, and people are fearful of what’s next because there is a lot of speculation on worst-case scenarios. Cases are growing worldwide, and the media is uttering the words “will have an impact on the supply chain” every other sentence.

The basic problem with this or any other evolving crisis (be it pandemic, material allocation or natural disaster) is, at the beginning, it can be difficult to assess what will happen. Will this be an H1N1-type event, where business continues with heightened attention to employee health in impacted areas, or will it require the draconian quarantine measures already seen in China that created significant supply-chain disruption? The answers may be unclear for weeks. The natural impulse is to say as little as possible. The problem is when only the media is talking, people imagine worst-case scenarios. Hence the huge selloffs in the stock market.

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Joseph Fama

How the NPI sector can position itself to beat Tier 1 EMSs at their own game.

Read more: EMS Collaboration: The Giant Killer

Gene Weiner

Auditors can help improve processes, but certifying quality is another story.

Writing in the August issue of PCD&F, Peter Bigelow says quality programs should ensure quality, not hamstring ingenuity. “Micromanaging a supplier by approving or certifying processes the customer is not familiar with will ultimately hamstring their supply base and add unnecessary cost and time, thus defeating the purpose of the approval or certification,” he concludes.

I believe outside auditors or consultants can help improve yields, lower costs, shorten cycle times, and so on.

Read more: The Limits of Certification

Sue Mucha Service sector businesses have plenty of functional parallels to SMT.

As CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY Editor-in-Chief Mike Buetow pointed out in his April editorial, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs are going unfilled. However, the notion that the smallest demographic of employees is in the 30 to 50 age range surprised me. My hypothesis for this is slightly different from Mike’s.

Back in the late ’90s/early 2000s, we were publicly touting the evolution of our economy into a service economy. I think folks entering the job market during that period simply focused on the concept of 21st century jobs. In the STEM events I’ve attended, many of the students I’ve talked with have no concept of factories (outside of thinking about putting a 3D printer in their garage). To them, a high-tech career involves a glass office in Silicon Valley.