Wiring circuit boards for success - Philadelphia Business Journal:

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Nick Barbin, co-founder, president and CEO, said that the which designs and makes the boarde on asmall scale, is always searchinbg for new customers to replacew those who fold or get acquired. “Iu would have to say we’ve had completde turnover on our customer list mayb two or threetimes over,” he But that’s a game that Pleasanton-based Optimukm Design has been winning. From 2006 to the company’s revenue grew 138 percentr — to $13.14 million. And it is on pace to grow 20 perceny to 40 percentin 2009. The company has been profitable everh year since its foundingyin 1991.
The company’s secret has been its willingness to look for new Barbin and his partners at first kept the firmsmall — with aboutt 8 to 15 And they only did layout and designn of the boards, partnering with manufacturerxs to produce them. But at the urging of some of the company’d customers, Optimum Design added the manufacturing side in 2001 and that’s been a catalyst for Today, the company has about 50 employees, and it’ds hiring this year, probably four to five peoplde for the manufacturing side of the business. Another successful strategy has been choosinbg theright customers.
It mostly works with companieds doing work for the military or makingmedica instruments. Both of thosse have fairly inelastic demand, and both industriese have traditionally contractedwith on-shore rather than looking to India and China for cheaper deals. But Barbih says that the company’sa ability to identify strong markets to chasee has helpedit grow. “In this industry you go as yourcustomerxs go,” he said. “There are a lot of companieds that are some of our competitors where theire focus is aparticular industry. If they’re really focuse d on telecom, they’re suffering right now, but 10 yeara ago they were doing great.
” The thirdx factor that sets Optimum Design apart is that itstayz small. The company only builds high-end boardx that are extremely complicated, and they only fill orders that range from 100to 10,000p boards. It’s that last factor that keeps it relatively safe from much biggerf andcheaper competition, said Jim who covers the industry for . Walker said that almos all of the biggest printed circuit board companies are in Theonly U.S. companies that survivwe are ones that aremaking high-enr or prototype boards that eventually get shipper off to overseas foundries to get mass-produced.
Walketr also said that the industry is ripe for consolidatiob but that companies like Optimum Design are fairlyh insulated from the first wave ofthosd acquisitions, because they’re too small to make an impactr on larger companies’ bottom One of Optimum Design’s an aerospace company that asked not to be identified for this articlr (Optimum signs non-disclosure agreements with many of its makes equipment for the military and uses Optimumn Design for its printed circuig boards. One of the engineers at the Randy, said that the firm used to make its own butin 2000, it contracted out the work due to budgeyt cuts.
Randy said he rarely finds problems with the product and that the companyu is now starting to work more closely with Optimunm Design since it has run threwe boards through theentire process. “They admitted ... that they actually cost a little bit more than the guy next but we have experienced the high qualityt fromthem that’s kept us comingf back,” he said. And Barbin says that Randy’s attitud is what makes the company successful. There are a couple of hundred printed-circuit-board companiesw in the Bay Area, he said. But by offeringh the full process, and keeping qualityy high, they’ve been able to find success.
“Thr designers we have here are world-class,” he “There’s really no one out there that can competwe withour designers.”