SMT - From the Editor:<br>Gathering Round at APEX

It's that time of year again. That maligned groundhog saw his shadow, my car has a permanent ice coating that I like to refer to as a "candy glaze," and the snow piles at the local mall's parking lot are tall enough to ski down. It's time, if only for your sanity's sake, to start thinking about the Nevada desert, about the hot sun, and climate-controlled exhibit halls of APEX. I've started booking up my calendar for the trip April 1–3, even this far in advance, and if you're tuned-in to the industry, the pre-APEX (March 31) PCB Executive Management and EMS Management Council Meetings should be on your list of priority rendezvous. These two customized, full-day programs feature experts providing in-depth information on critical management topics facing the EMS and PCB industries, according to the IPC. And not a single snowflake in sight.

During the EMS Management Council Meeting, speakers will address best practices of managing customer relationships, the five key elements that should be in an EMS contract, and how to cope with the counterfeit component problem. IPC gathered a panel to discuss the pros and cons of securing growth funding from investment banking, commercial banking, and private equity investment firms. With the lending and investment atmosphere thrashing about wildly in the U.S. and abroad, this panel should be taken seriously. Investing time in the purely financial side of your business may yield some cash flow for assembly equipment, new test systems, or expanded labor.

Another multi-focused panel will discuss best practices in human resources (HR) management, including an update on U.S. federal employment law. As neither panel focuses on the assembly, materials, and other EMS aspects covered in the technical conferences and booths at the show, it's best to get to the pre-APEX meeting and absorb this less-familiar information. Executives in the EMS industry serve their workers, their customers, and their investors, and this role goes well beyond producing soldered assemblies.

At the PCB Executive Management Meeting, IPC plans to present attendees with opportunities in the PCB industry and planning strategies for capitalizing on them. Rex Rosario, chairman of Graphics PLC, will review how the Graphics PLC/SOMACIS joint venture (JV) in China came into existence, and what the experience taught him. JVs are vital to the health and growth of industry, but they are fraught with dangers on financial fronts, logistics, and even for a company's reputation. Successful collaboration requires more than luck and a partner.

Greg Munie, chairman of the IPC Technical Conference, will summarize current technological advancements for executives trying to forecast their company's next moves. Joe Fjelstad of Verdant Electronics and SiliconPipe Inc. will explain how Verdant's Occam process will impact a soldering-dependant industry by introducing a solderless alternative. Occam has grabbed headlines in 2007 and 2008; PCB manufacturers should take note, as the electronics assembly process can be performed at the PCB fabricators or at a traditional EMS facility. Here, solderless interconnection creates a ripple in more than one aspect of assembly — well beyond materials.

There also will be a session on the best proven methods for developing strategies in the PCB industry.

IPC designed the meetings to be exclusive and executive — providing a strategy-level view. These are the team leaders with similar experiences, similar informational needs, and with crews under them that rely on effective guidance and knowledge. The IPC EMS and PCB Executive Management Meetings are open to both members and nonmembers, but registrants must hold senior-level positions with an EMS or PCB company to attend. Everyone attends APEX for different reasons — to source materials, to compare equipment, to ferret out customers in a new market sector — but everyone, even cold New England editors, attends for the same goal of obtaining and sharing information. I would go even if IPC moved the show up north, to a city even colder than Boston. Although, just to be on the safe side, let's still follow that bright desert sun.

For more information on the management meetings or to register, visit www.goipcshows.org or contact Susan Filz, IPC director of industry programs, at (847) 597-2884; susanfilz@ipc.org.

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