The technologies that succeed will likely be variations on our current ones.

A new year is always exciting. Thoughts of embarking on new initiatives provide opportunity and inspire everyone to dream big and make them happen. When the new year happens to coincide with a new decade – in this case, the ’20s, or as some of my business colleagues are calling it, “the roaring ’20s” – one can’t help but dream extra big and forecast events that should or could impact our industry in the decade ahead.

Changes in materials and components mean yesterday’s issues are also today’s.

Industry is much like the classic Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day: We work on a technical challenge, solve it, and wake up the next day and solve it again.

Haverhill, MA, December 5, 2019. IMI, Inc. announced today that company President Peter Bigelow was elected President of the Boston Chapter of the SMTA (Surface Mount Technology Association). Bigelow has been Chapter Vice President for the fast five years. The Boston Chapter includes active members involved in the design and manufacture of advanced circuit assemblies and related products. Monthly technical meetings as well as an annual regional Exhibition are planned and facilitated by the Boston Chapter.

As veteran engineers know, sometimes less is more, and a lot faster.

Our industry is noted for spectacular new technology that eclipses everything around it at breathtaking speed. As exciting and noteworthy as those technologies may seem, however, success more often moves in ways and at speeds akin to the proverbial turtle. Patience pays.

From additive manufacturing to autonomous vehicles, figuring out the next big thing is no small chore.

With the last quarter underway and all eyes beginning to contemplate what and how to do better in the year to come, one of my focuses is trying to identify which technology will be the next big thing – one that will either transform or disrupt doing business as I know it.

The simplest motivational measures can go a long way with tomorrow’s workers.

As the challenges of training evolve, so does the definition of lean.

An organization cannot become lean without tons of training.

Supply chain fatigue taking hold? It’s all in a day’s work.

Are we about to return to an era of rapid inflation escalations?

When you have been around the block as many times as me, events eerily remind you of similar events from a different time. Or, as legendary baseball player Yogi Berra supposedly said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again!”

Old fabrication equipment never dies. It keeps getting reengineered for the future.

How far can you push the envelope? I have asked myself that question for years as I watch the advancement of technology and the fabricated PCBs that anchor that technology. And just when it appears a new and insurmountable challenge has come along, our industry devises a creative solution that catapults us even further ahead.