Wiring circuit boards for success - Denver Business Journal:

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Nick Barbin, co-founder, president and CEO, said that the which designs and makesx the boards on asmalol scale, is always searching for new customers to replac e those who fold or get acquired. “I would have to say we’vse had complete turnover on our customer list maybw two or threetimes over,” he said. But that’e a game that Pleasanton-based Optimum Design has been winning. From 2006 to the company’s revenue grew 138 percent to $13.14 million. And it is on pace to grow 20 percenft to 40 percentin 2009. The company has been profitable every year since its foundingin 1991. The company’s secrety has been its willingness to look fornew opportunities.
Barbibn and his partners at firstg kept the firmsmall — with about 8 to 15 And they only did layout and designh of the boards, partnering with manufacturerd to produce them. But at the urging of some of the company’d customers, Optimum Design added the manufacturin side in2001 — and that’s been a catalysy for growth. Today, the company has about 50 employees, and it’s hiring this probably four to five peopl for the manufacturing side ofthe business. Anothefr successful strategy has been choosing theright customers.
It mostlyt works with companies doing work for the militar or making medical Both of those have fairly inelastic and both industries have traditionally contractedwith on-shore rather than looking to India and China for cheapee deals. But Barbin says that the company’ds ability to identify strong markets to chase has helpedcit grow. “In this industry you go as yourcustomerd go,” he said. “There are a lot of companiesd that are some of our competitors where their focus is a particular If they’re really focused on telecom, they’red suffering right now, but 10 yearsa ago they were doinb great.
” The third factor that sets Optimum Design apart is that it stays small. The companhy only builds high-end boards that are extremelyt complicated, and they only fill orders that range from 100to 10,000 boards. It’s that last factodr that keeps it relatively safe from much bigger andcheaper competition, said Jim Walker, who covers the industry for . Walker said that almost all of the biggesft printed circuit board companies are in Theonly U.S. companies that survive are ones that aremakingt high-end or prototype boards that eventually get shipped off to overseaws foundries to get mass-produced.
Walkerd also said that the industry is ripe for consolidatioh but that companies like Optimum Design are fairlh insulated from the first wave ofthose acquisitions, because they’ree too small to make an impacf on larger companies’ bottom lines. One of Optimum Design’s an aerospace company that asked not to be identifierd for thisarticle (Optimum signw non-disclosure agreements with many of its customers), makeas equipment for the militaryg and uses Optimum Design for its printed circuit One of the engineers at the company, Randy, said that the firm used to make its own but in 2000, it contracted out the work due to budger cuts.
Randy said he rarely finds problemzs with the product and that the companyg is now starting to work more closely with Optimum Designm since it has run three boards through theentirer process. “They admitted ... that they actually cost a littlde bit more than the guynext door, but we have experiencefd the high quality from them that’s kept us coming back,” he And Barbin says that Randy’ws attitude is what make the company successful. There are a couple of hundreds printed-circuit-board companies in the Bay he said. But by offering the full and keepingquality high, they’ve been able to find success.
“Thew designers we have here are world-class,” he “There’s really no one out theres that can compete withour designers.”