What do you do when your market and customers dwindle? You reinvent yourself, that's what you do. (This philosophy goes for companies, countries and even for you and me.)

It's always a pleasure to talk about success stories, especially during these economic times, and to draw the appropriate lessons from such stories.

The event described below (from an earlier press release) is the culmination of a strategic shift, a smart decision taken in 2003 by CEO Paul Benke (pictured at left with his daughter, Stephanie Benke, Major Accounts Executive, San Jose Mercury News) and President Michaela Brody of Zero Defects International, partners in business and in life; a seemingly good combination.

Zero Defects Int'l Test & Inspection Conference a Success

Santa Clara -- The initial Zero Defects International PCBA Test and Assembly conference and open house proved to be successful beyond expectations. Held at the Viscom, Inc. Silicon Valley Technical Center, and hosted by an international group of equipment and software vendors, the products included every technology needed to inspect and test printed circuit assemblies in production levels, as well as prototype manufacturing.

Sponsors included Viscom (X-Ray and AOI), Seica, Inc. (ICT testers and flying-probes), ReMaTek, Inc. (ICT and functional test fixtures) and Temento (boundary scan solutions).  Countries of origin for all products shown and demonstrated included Germany, Italy, Canada, France, the United States and China. Zero Defects has made available CDs containing all papers presented and all product information provided during the open house and conference. Requests for CDs should be made via e-mail at conference@zdefects.com.

In 1983, Brody launched Zero Defects to serve the test and test fixture needs of the bare board PCB industry. The U.S. industry was approximately $4 billion then, the largest in the world, with a 40% share. California alone accounted for approximately 30% of that number, and still does today, in a greatly diminished industry. The following quote from an article I wrote previously brings the story of the U.S. PCB industry up to 2004:

Between 2000 and 2004, production plummeted about 50%, from $9.9 billion to $5.1 billion, back to 1990 levels, when the U.S. produced 30% of world total. Today it's less than 15%. We have experienced an economic tsunami.

--"Is This Industry Really Necessary?," CircuiTree, January 31, 2005

In 2009, the U.S. PCB production will be under $3.4 billion--less than 8% of the world total.