Jennifer Lee Founder, Founder & CEO Understanding the nuances of electronics manufacturing to deliver your products and services on time and budget is no simple feat. Whether you’re trying to simplify your design to cut down on production costs or negotiating a short-run manufacturing deal, the process is painstaking and time-consuming, to say the least. Adding to the complexity is the lasting impact of the pandemic that leaves companies with little to no room for error. As a result, the industry is now relying increasingly on electronics contract manufacturers (ECM) to make production as smooth as possible, giving companies the ability to prioritize their time and effort in areas that matter. This has been an aggressive trend for years, and seems to be recognized as the most successful solution for the future. In fact, industry experts estimate that the global ECM market will reach US$653.8 billion by 2027 from US$449.1 billion last year.
However, in the real world, many ECMs today are paying less attention to quality and on-time performance. Their inconsistency may stem from the volume of products they are trying to produce based on revenue—higher the volume and workload, lower the quality of what’s produced. As a result, customers are hindered to get reliable, battle-tested, and proven products to market, which can substantially increase project costs—a practice to avoid in the post pandemic era. In essence, such ECMs fail to serve their one true purpose of being a partner that can manufacture products with the same care and attention that it took to conceive them.
That’s where Surface Art Manufacturing makes a world of difference.
“While Contract Manufacturers have similar tools and processes, there is one special ingredient that sets them apart! CARE. We care to build right, aiming to require minimal rework and touchup,” prides Jennifer Lee, Founder, CEO, Surface Art Manufacturing.
Founded in 1994 and based in San Jose, CA, Surface Art Manufacturing has driven growth based on the twin pillars of quality and customer-centricity. Being ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 as well as ITAR certified, it is a leading provider of Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS), offering a full range of Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) and mechanical assembly for prototype, pre-production, and production assemblies to a broad range of companies and industries. From startups to Fortune-level companies looking for the collaboration, quality, and service of a domestic contract manufacturer, Surface Art Manufacturing’s diverse clientele covers all stages of the business spectrum.
“Where most companies focus on low mix and high volume, we have earned our reputation building for the high-mix, lowvolume market,” says Jennifer.
Certified as a Woman-Owned Business by the SBA (WOSB) and the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), Surface Art Manufacturing has built its legacy serving high-risk markets, specifically for projects requiring domestic manufacturing such as defense, space, and medical products. Needless to say, it is routinely challenged with bringing a new product to life in single-digit quantities. This is where Surface Art Manufacturing leads by example. Regardless of how small a job is perceived to be, they focus on treating every job with the same diligence, and it shows.
Since 2014, Surface Art Manufacturing has manufactured over one million PCBs with an on-time record of 99.03 percent— this includes records kept during the pandemic. They also pride themselves on achieving a 99.48 percent quality record, which loosely translates to a less than one percent RMA rate (an industry jargon for returned material that does not meet the customer’s contractual requirements.)
One of Many yet Unlike Any
At its core, Surface Art Manufacturing offers the obvious standards involved in building electronics, though they do support mechanical projects with CAD and design efficiency analysis.
Where most companies focus on low mix and high volume, we have earned our reputation building for the high mix and low volume market
“We allow for a simple complimentary visual inspection performed with no absolution, focused on general defects based on just assembly. Depending on the findings, we can perform a deeper analysis at the component-level checking for opens, shorts, correct values and polarity utilizing Flying Probe and 3D X-Ray analysis,” says Jennifer. Often when boards are not functional and a project stalls, the design can be the excuse for a project not working. As a result, the experts at Surface Art Manufacturing are often tasked to build the same project again, which they routinely execute successfully. This proves that a poor design that was assembled correctly will expeditiously allow for the discovery of such a mistake, but a good design assembled incorrectly can be catastrophic. From this experience, clients gain the opportunity to learn more about their project as well as gain confidence in their efforts. Most importantly, they realize two important aspects of manufacturing—building with the highest level of quality is priceless and that quality is the best way to reduce costs.
Though Surface Art Manufacturing checks all the right boxes with its unparalleled customer centricity and focus on quality, a question worth pondering over is the amount of time and effort they take to reach that stage.
A Proactive Approach to Eliminate Mid- Project Rework and Rollout Hassles
It is no surprise that when revenue is paramount, it requires costs to be as low as possible, forcing products to be “pumped” through the process, relying on an army of technicians to repair the final products over and over. The reality, though, is that even the slightest carelessness at the front end can be statistically impossible to catch and repair by people who in themselves are on a schedule exasperated by the fact that experienced technicians are becoming scarce.
This risk is growing exponentially daily since parts are getting smaller and higher density goes hand in hand with miniaturization. To put it in perspective, when a paper-sized board having thousands of parts on it (some as wide as a few human hairs) is assembled with less regard to quality, defects can be missed even if many people inspect and rework the product. Additionally, Human rework can create new, unexpected defects in the process—especially if we factor in the heat cycle limits for certain components, which is especially critical due to the vast shortages due to the ongoing global chip crisis.
The solution? To build the board correctly from the get-go and avoid any rework if possible—a proactive rather reactive strategy!
“We track this as our first pass yield, which is a measure of how many internal defects we are having to rework. In 2014, we introduced nitrogen reflow to all our customers at no additional costs; which was another ingredient that greatly impacted the amount of rework performance. Together with other process improvements, today our first pass yield is over 98 percent,” says Jennifer. This is indeed a proud record that OEMs should know and set their ECMs’ expectations level of service on a consistent basis.
While most competitors have rooms full of technicians overwhelmed with being tasked to rework defects, Surface Art Manufacturing relies on a single rework person for internal defect repairs. Given their record, even this employee is often seen working on routine soldering operations for engineering testing or through hole installations.
Flexibility is the Key!
Flexibility is another aspect that Surface Art Manufacturing prides itself on. In the fast-paced world of new product electronic development, corporate decisions for investments and strategies are a dynamic reality. Progress can be delayed due to bottlenecks in management or even shareholder meetings. Surface Art Manufacturing knows the importance of time, and the fact that most decisions are made with the team in minutes often focused on the impact on overall quality rather than expenses.
Another example of their flexibility is the frequent request for projects to be delivered earlier than expected. There are times that software development can get an advantageous head start on projects that are running behind schedule due to internal reasons or material delivery times. In many cases, products are asked to be shipped even without a full inspection. This is the kind of trust that the team has earned solely due to its proactive policy to build it right the first time.
In one instance, a consumer electronic product company had to rework a product early on in its development stages, which was being built overseas. Surface Art Manufacturing was chosen to perform the task due to the importance and complexity of the rework. A courier flew in on a weekend late morning to deliver the 20 pieces needed. Upon beginning the process, a significant design issue was discovered, heightening the risk of project delays. Executed by Jennifer herself based on her team’s suggestion for a rework that was experimental which was quickly tested and passed functionality requirements. The courier had a confirmed return flight just 12 hours later. There were two lasting memories: they made their flight, and the rework functioned reliably enough to keep their development on schedule.
“This was a great example of how we are like a Swiss Army knife. As solution providers, we are always striving to come up with creative ways to allow choices based on our experience. We actually say we are like the marines, sometimes we just try and land on the beach though it may not be pretty, but it is functional and the difference of making something work well enough to perform software tests while a new hardware design is remanufactured allows for such clients to leap forward in their march to their destination,” prides Jennifer.
A Clear Vision of the Future
Such instances of success alongside their relentless commitment to quality have garnered Surface Art Manufacturing tremendous traction in the market. The biggest industries and most of their partnerships are within the defense/space, medical, enterprise, and industrial/commercial sectors. Their existing customer RFQ win rate is almost 100 percent, indicating that customers understand the value Surface Art Manufacturing brings to their bottom-line and the confidence they inspire. The company also actively partners with design firms and PCB suppliers, which is highly unique given that as a supplier, their own products could be blamed in projects that fail due to assembly issues. With Surface Art Manufacturing, they know they have a partner that shares in their need for care.
Improvement of skills or equipment is always required in manufacturing, but the real ingredient attributable to Surface Art Manufacturing’s success is the family environment to maintain their old-fashioned value of caring. “The roadmap ahead is to be true to who we are and while others may use words like trust to define their promise we prefer, loyalty. The difference? Trust is something that is given, making it dynamic and dependent on circumstances. Whereas, loyalty is received without request, the key to consistency and reliability and is the trait necessary to achieve quality—and that sums everything Surface Art Manufacturing stands for,” concludes Jennifer.
