EMS007 Editor Steve Gold recently had the opportunity to interview Epec Engineered Technologies Director of Operations, Kendall Paradise, a third-generation PCB person whose family has been building circuit boards since 1952. The interview offered insights not only into the evolution of a 58-year old small business from board builder to supply chain manager, but into the changing face of the North American PCB industry.


EMS007: Take us through your company history. Why did you change your company name to Epec Engineered Technologies this year?

KP: I actually am a third-generation PCB person; my grandfather started one of the companies in Connecticut that Epec acquired about eight years ago.

Epec has been around since 1952. So we've been making printed circuit boards out of New Bedford in Massachusetts for over 50 years. About 10 years ago, Epec was purchased by Ed McMahon, our CEO, and his partners. Since then, it has grown by acquisitions in the PCB industry.

We've done about twelve acquisitions in the last seven years, all over the country and in the different areas of the PCB world. That's really how we've grown.

We changed our name to Epec Engineered Technologies to reflect how, over the past three years, we've been involved in a lot more than just printed circuit boards. So, we wanted everybody to see that.

EMS007: Tell me more about the acquisitions. What did you look for when you were acquiring these companies?

KP: We acquired physically smaller printed circuit board companies-medium- to high-technology, high-mix, low-volume--the type of work that could easily be moved into our model. We typically found smaller regional companies, all pretty much between $3 and $5 million companies, usually second- or third-generation-owned companies where people there wanted to be involved in something bigger and didn't know how to do it on their own.

EMS007: Can you tell me about technology capabilities?

KP: We are pretty spread out in terms of the technology that we focus on, which is really the beauty of our model. With our supply chain, we supply anything from two to twenty layers. We're very high-mix, low-volume for the majority of our customers, but we do a lot of higher volume inventory programs for a select customer base.

This year, we are really working on our flex and rigid-flex quick-turn work in higher copper--about the 6-7ounce range--which is a great niche for us.

EMS007: Who is your typical customer and what end-markets do you serve?

KP: One of the things that have been really good for us, despite the tough economic conditions last year, is that we are spread out among a lot of industries. We do a lot of commercial work, and we do some automotive work. Some of our customers are in construction. And we do medical products, as well. So we are pretty diversified. We really focus on never getting too heavily involved in one market segment, because when something really bad happens, like what experienced last year, it could be painful. A lot of our competitors took big hits because they were very highly invested in automotive. So we're pretty spread out, much more commercial oriented. We are not in military or ITAR-type contracts. We focus strictly on the commercial side.

Last year, the overall PCB market was down about 35% and, obviously, our business didn't do as well as we wanted. Yet, because we are still diversified, and we're offering different product lines, we performed above the market.

EMS007: Tell me a little bit about your flex circuit capabilities. What are your objectives there?

KP: We've been producing flex circuitry for about three years. When we started getting into the flex industry, we'd always done very standard, longer lead times, small volume orders. Now, we're focusing on smaller orders. One of our critical services is our engineering and design capabilities. So what we are focusing on this year is more quick-turn flex and rigid flex: high-mix, very low volume, with 5-, 7- and 10-day turns.

In 2010, we feel that our proven supply chain and engineering resources have opened up that quick-turn door for us. We've successfully worked with our core customers in the flex arena, being able to cut time out of the production process. We are excited about this new direction for 2010--the quick-turn side of flex, and new product development.