Interview
2008 was a bumper year for JUKI Americas, celebrating the
launch of the FX3 and the success of its three-year parts and labor
warranty plan. Trevor Galbraith asks Bob Black, JUKI’s enigmatic
CEO, about his vision for the future of the company.
Q1. Congratulations on a highly success- comes less economical. Selective will grow you with certainty what will happen. I just
ful year for JUKI Americas. The world is tremendously over the next decade, and we try to ensure Juki’s success and let the rest
now a very different place. How do you plan to benefit greatly from that. of the market take care of itself.
plan to keep your market share up in
2009? Q5. JUKI competes very successfully in Q9. Credit seems to have dried up across
the high-volume and mid-volume market. the world. Do you have any ideas or sug-
Let’s face it, Trevor, 2009 is going to be a
What can you offer customers at entry- gestions on how customers can handle
tougher year for everyone. The fear and
level? sales in these difficult times?
uncertainty is leading customers to delay
equipment purchases, even if they are still You know, Juki started more than 20 years It is very tough now. We are working with
busy. On the positive side, many of our ago with the PlaceMat series of entry-level several finance companies to make credit
customers are still quite busy. The China machines. More than 1,500 were sold options more available for our customers.
slowdown has brought some work back to worldwide, 500 of those in North America. At APEX we are introducing a 24-month
North America, and many EMS companies Over the years, we kind of got away from zero-percent interest lease on several mod-
are benefiting from that. We at Juki will that as we went to mid-level and high-speed els of placement machines.
work harder and smarter to get every order systems. At APEX, we will return to our
we can. And remember, when times are roots with a truly remarkable entry-level Q10. You are responsible for JUKI sales
tough, everyone needs the “Lowest Cost of machine. I am very excited about this prod- through Mexico and South America. We
Ownership.” uct, and I think the market will be too. are hearing more stories about manufac-
turing returning to a more regional focus.
Q2. Many tier 3 and tier 4 EMS compa- Q6. You are launching a new machine at Are you seeing this in the number of sales
nies continue to do well in the United APEX, which you will show only to in- enquiries?
States. Why is that? vited customers in a private room. Can’t
Yes, we are. Brazil had a bit of a slowdown
you give us a hint about this system?
They give superior, local service to their in 2008 2nd half, due to a drop in their
customers. Many OEMs rely heavily on Well, Trevor, we won’t introduce this currency value. But it has stabilized and
their EMS suppliers for technical and logis- publicly until later this year, so I can’t say we are seeing good activity now. Argentina
tical support. You cannot get that type of too much. But it is something that will also is busy. Mexico has been the main
service from a company 6,000 miles away. allow our customers to improve the quality beneficiary of the work coming back from
of production and increase first pass yields, China.
Q3. Selective soldering has grown substan- so I think many companies will be very
tially in recent years as manufacturers excited. Q11. What technology trends in the
find it much more versatile for the high- placement process are you seeing today?
mix environment. What does JUKI offer Q7. There are many rumors today about
Two big trends have emerged. The first is
in this area? the financial health of the equipment
continued miniaturization of components.
industry. Can you comment on that?
Our selective business has grown fast over 0201s are commonplace, and we have
the past two years. At APEX, we will intro- It is true that many in our industry are in several customers using 01005s in regular
duce two new models that will offer our bad shape. Juki has been fortunate to have production. There is much more demand
users never before seen levels of price/per- had several good years in a row, including for traceability to the component level.
formance. Our new FlexSelect 510 has the a strong 2008. Though ours is a competi- We have installed many fully automatic
price of many of our entry-level competi- tive business, and we are in it to win, I am traceability systems in the past year, and
tors, with technology and quality found up saddened by the many good people laid off demand continues to grow.
to now in more expensive machines. We in the last year in our industry, and I am
urge everyone to come take a look. thankful each day that I have not had to Bob Black. As always it is a pleasure.
do that. Thank you for joining us today.
Q4. Do you see the selective soldering
market continuing to grow? Q8. The industry is also rife with rumors Trevor Galbraith.
of mergers and acquisition. Do you think
Absolutely. Selective soldering is still in its
2009 will see the long-awaited shake out
early years. As boards become more surface
of the pick and place industry?
mount, with fewer through-hole parts,
wave soldering with masking pallets be- There are many rumors, but I couldn’t tell
www.globalsmt.net Global SMT & Packaging – March 2009 – 33
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