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A Year in the Life: Spirit Circuits
January 30, 2013 |Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the December 2012 issue of The PCB Magazine.
As is typically British, putting your best foot forward was the order of the day in January 2012, and we started the year with positive energy, vigour, and enthusiasm; we were ready to face another year on the PCB roller coaster.
Well, perhaps not so typically British. We at Spirit we do not talk about the weather, nor do we moan and groan and complain about the economy and the worst recession in 70 years. My motto is and always has been, you can only play with the cards you are dealt. My staff both understands and supports this. I am forever the optimist and we work hard looking for new opportunities and improvements to the supply chain process. In tough times you need change. Spirit has changed course many times in order to survive and now, finally, we have a steady course that is yielding good growth.
As we sit back and reflect on the year, it certainly was a rollercoaster of a year. Thankfully, we did put our best foot forward and remained on it throughout the year, finishing up with a hugely successful exhibition at Electronica in Munich.
Strategy is an important factor in all business but even more so when competition is global and tough. When we set out our stall in 2012, we had a clear strategy and everyone in our business had bought into it. MPCBs (metal-clad PCBs) are now widely used in the LED and power conversion industry sectors, and at Spirit we have spent the last two years researching and preparing for this new wave of work also known as IMS PCBs (insulated metal substrate).
During Q1 of 2012, the buzzword at Spirit was “Massive!" All our customers were trying to prepare us for a huge upturn in orders. True to form in our industry we had wave after wave of orders flood in; efficiencies went out the window, and money was spent in all directions, as we desperately tried to keep everyone happy. When the floodwaters receded, and normality returned, we spent the next quarter clearing up the mess, mending all the fences and trying to predict the next wave of orders.
By Q3, “Massive” was replaced with “Missing:” The storm had passed, calm had set in and we were encouraged to remain positive. One customer even said there will be an “avalanche in coming weeks.”
Fortunately for Spirit, we are a very diverse manufacturer and not totally dependent on this one industry sector; our core business for many years has been quick-turn PCBs, which have generated more than 50% of our revenue, and with many of our customers now using our “Ask Dave” feature, we have seen a great uplift in new parts, month on month. (“Ask Dave” is a guaranteed delivery service where we give £1,000 compensation if we are late.)
Finally, Q4 is upon us and we are ending the year with a blast. After a lull of orders in the middle of the year, October and November have seen record order intakes and meaningful forecasts and forward orders into 2013.
Our focus in the MPCB market was further endorsed in November when we appointed David Hunton as technical sales manager of IMS products. Hunton joins our rapidly expanding team of industry experts and brings with him a wealth of industry knowledge. Spirit is recognized as an industry leader in the production of MPCBs. We are supplying most of the major lighting companies in the UK and have a plan to expand our business with export sales in 2013.
In the final tally, Spirit can report a successful 2012 with 20% growth on last year, fuelled by the LED lighting industry and our presence in that sector. Furthermore, we are predicting similar results for 2013. 2012 has been both a challenging and rewarding year for us, highlighted by being awarded the supplier of the year by Seward Electronics, who is a long-standing customer of Spirit. We also passed a very challenging audit from Tyco Electronics this year and have subsequently been awarded a significant increase in business for 2013.
Lean Manufacturing has been a way of life at Spirit for many years, and now with many improvements to the business we are focusing on environmental issues and energy savings. We are in the final stages of ISO 14001 approval, having passed the first audits in September. Our final audit is due in February 2013, when we anticipate full accreditation.
So, 2012 will go on the books as a record-breaking year for Spirit, and we have the highest sales turnover the company has ever enjoyed, with a highly motivated team committed to the business and the industry. On the horizon, we see 2013 being another exciting year and hope to report massive growth this time next year.
Steve Driver is managing director of UK-based Spirit Circuits. He has been in the printed circuits industry since 1978.