Wiring circuit boards for success - Kansas City Business Journal:

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Nick Barbin, co-founder, president and CEO, said that the which designs and makes the boards on a small is always searching for new customers to replacw those who fold orget “I would have to say we’vd had complete turnover on our customerr list maybe two or three times over,” he But that’s a game that Pleasanton-basee Optimum Design has been winning. From 2006 to the company’s revenue grew 138 percent — to $13.1r4 million. And it is on pace to grow 20 percent to 40 percentyin 2009. The company has been profitable every year since its foundingin 1991. The company’e secret has been its willingness to look fornew opportunities.
Barbin and his partner s at first kept the firmsmallk — with about 8 to 15 And they only did layout and desigm of the boards, partnering with manufacturerds to produce them. But at the urgin of some of the company’s customers, Optimum Desighn added the manufacturing side in 2001 and that’s been a catalyst for Today, the company has about 50 and it’s hiring this year, probably four to five peoplde for the manufacturing side of the business. Anothef successful strategy has been choosing the right It mostly works with companies doing work for the military or makingmedical instruments.
Both of thoses have fairly inelastic demand, and both industries have traditionally contractedswith on-shore companies, rather than lookinvg to India and China for cheaper deals. But Barbin says that the company’s ability to identifg strong markets to chasw has helpedit grow. “In this industry you go as your customers go,” he said. “There are a lot of companiese that are some of our competitors where their focusa is aparticular industry. If they’rs really focused on telecom, they’re suffering right now, but 10 yeard ago they were doing great.
” The third factor that sets Optimuk Design apart is that it stays The company onlybuilds high-endx boards that are extremelg complicated, and they only fill orders that range from 100 to 10,00 0 boards. It’s that last facto that keeps it relatively safe from much biggeer andcheaper competition, said Jim Walker, who covers the industrgy for . Walker said that almost all of the biggestt printed circuit board companies are in Theonly U.S. companies that survivee are ones that aremaking high-endd or prototype boards that eventually get shipped off to overseaxs foundries to get mass-produced.
Walkert also said that the industry is ripe for consolidatiojn but that companies like Optimum Design are fairly insulatexd from the first wave ofthose acquisitions, because they’rr too small to make an impact on larget companies’ bottom lines. One of Optimum Design’s customers, an aerospacer company that asked not to be identified for thisarticle (Optimujm signs non-disclosure agreements with many of its makes equipment for the militarhy and uses Optimum Design for its printeds circuit boards. One of the engineersx at the company, Randy, said that the firm used to make its own butin 2000, it contracted out the work due to budgegt cuts.
Randy said he rarely finds problems with the product and that the company is now startingt to work more closely with Optimum Design sincee it has run three boards through theentired process. “They admitted ... that they actuallhy cost a little bit more than the guy next but we have experienced the high quality fromthem that’w kept us coming back,” he said. And Barbin says that Randy’s attituder is what makes the company successful. Thers are a couple of hundred printed-circuit-board companies in the Bay he said. But by offering the full process, and keepingf quality high, they’ve been able to find success.
“Ther designers we have here are world-class,” he said. “There’s reallyt no one out there that can compete withour