Running an Electronics Manufacturing business in Ireland part 1

This video explains some of the challenges when you setup an Electronics Manufacturing Business and is presenting some of the problems we encountered over the years in this business. All the opinions in this video are subjective and they reflect our views which might very different from your own, we accept that.
We hope the information is useful for young entrepreneurs thinking to start a business in this industry and we hope is not going to put them off.
I apologize for my English (not my native language) and for the quality of the video which was shot in one go without any editing.
Enjoy !

[@christine6894]

I've always been fascinated by mass production of electronics, like some childhood dream, used to take calculators to bits from 1977 onwards as a kid, anything electronic with leds and microchips in, dad was electrician, taught me about transistors 1979 onwards, first did programming on a friend's zx81 then I got my own computer, an acorn electron in 1984 when I was 13, fascinated I spent every night programming, in basic, by 1985 learnt 6502, did arcade games in machine code as teenager, sent them in for valuation at Superior Software, Micropower, and CSM, but they said either didn’t load, or too jerky, not arcade style enough, late 80's did a lot of maths programs, in 1985 built a transistor LC circuit that was a metal detector, and soldered it all up on my own pcb, in 89 soldered circuit panels for my dad in shed, that he sold to factory in Scotland, only did about 40 panels, but he couldn't keep travelling all way when they malfunctioned, in 87 I build a motor control circuit for my younger brothers electronics class, and over years I sometimes did 2 weeks a year wiring houses with my dad, got A levels in doing maths, physics, electronics, and computer science degree 1992, York uni, was taught about logic design, programming, saw things like gate arrays, microcoding, built a logic analyser, speaking clock circuit with audio samples from chips, learnt about the 68000, in 90 91, built z80 computer with 72k from chips, and built video circuit using tea2000 and SAA1027 sync generator chip, 64 colours on TV, got row of coloured dots across screen, circuit so big, that after that it malfunctioned, took 6 months to build, built my own eprom programmer, in 92 for my 3rd year project I build a satellite navigation system, early gps receiver, down to 100m, I did the z80 and TMS computer that did the dithering, and calculations, and my supervisor built the gigahertz frequency receiver, demodulator, and the technician in the lab built it, it was 3 foot long, later mid 90s did computer programming jobs, by 96 still dreaming of electronic manufacturing, I saw the new microcontrollers coming out, and was fascinated so I bought the picstart system, with PIC microcontrollers, and started to think what I could build with them, they were only about 8k etc, 8MHz type chips, but interesting, by then I had built this talking allophone circuit, and then I built a scrolling dot matrix led red text system, my wife rang companies all day, and global video wanted to put up 3 million pound to have one in every video shop, I had only prototype, i.e. 100 times smaller than what they wanted (full 10 foot display, mine was few inches across), they said I would have to get parts, costing 1 million, I came home from work in egg factory, to see wife and baby as usual, was staggered, we got a financial accountant in, and he told us we'd have to start small 50 pound, each week, go to bank and prove had income etc, so had to leave it, couldn’t do it, but I dreamed on, by about 2001, still wanting to get back into electronics, I got a job at Calrec Audio in Hebden Bridge and soldered boards that went into mixing desks for Radio 1, and BBC. We all soldered the boards by hand, i.e. putting in the components, and soldering, I studied the circuits and noticed that there was a jitter problem due to bad timing in the logic design, I told the bosses, but they were all analog engineers, and I was concerned always about soldering too fast, not wanting to run right along too hot on the pins, but they wanted me to solder so fast it was like knitting. After 3 months they fired me for not being up to speed. After that began years of immense studies of maths, electronics, semiconductor design, physics, anything I could learn. But I never knew just how you can take things to the next stage and actually do a production run of proper professional boards, as all we could get were clips of billion dollar factories with robots and chips being inserted by machine, and things going down conveyor belts, and hi-profile company adverts at the end, and when we look at chip prices they are all far too high, making it impossible to compete with the low prices of products. No-one has ever explained what you would have to do if you wanted to go to the next stage, on a small scale, how you could possibly get your first machine, and actually produce professional looking copies of your circuit boards, and how you would get cheap parts, and the labour involved. This is the first time it has been shown in a video. Thanks so much. I was intrigued to find out and I hope he doesn't mind, and haven't spent long, but I have done some very brief research, being that he is so modest, and not seeking appraisal. I feel maybe we need to know who he is. Since he is not like the others at all, hasn't given his name as others do and hasn't asked for any connections with his company, yet he has spent time to explain information that people never give, since all other semiconductor designers never reveal their methods. His name is Aurelian Lazarut, and at a guess I think his relations are from somewhere like Romania. He is the director of a small company of several people, and they have a few employees; a family business, well established since 2007, and it's really true he has probably really literally gone out and bought those machines, and is really helping us to know how to get going as a small start up (i.e. not multimillion dollar techniques), and I was amazed to see he is not just some worker who has just sat down at the end of the evening with some time off, knowing nothing about electronics except operating the machine; he holds several patents, electronic designs, audio and video circuits, microcontrollers, and is a brilliant inventor, and goes by the name Aurash, as I can see in his logic level programming conversations with hardware design friends who do a lot of verilog, VHDL, HDL, for semiconductor microchip design, and he was a system verification engineer for Xilinx, the billion dollar semiconductor company, that invented the first commercially viable field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and creating the first fabless manufacturing model. Chris Fleetwood, Haworth England

[@adaptivedesign8795]

Chris, This is by far the most impressive comment I ever seen on KZbin, I've burned many phases as you described in your post starting with a C64 (sorry I was in the opposite camp) building an eprom programmer, a led scrolling ticker etc. When microcontrollers have become available (8051 & friends) I switched from ASM to C and later on (1997) I become very interested in digital design (VHDL and Verilog) and learned about FPGA. (and ended up working for Xilinx) I got into manufacturing by building prototypes and just progressed from there by takin more complicated jobs every time, but being a designer, helped me to understand about manufacturing faster. As you very well described in your comment is not easy to scale up a good idea, probably the most difficult stage is to turn a prototype into a product when you have very little resources at your disposal. I like you comment fro another reason, because you are not bragging about things is just your journey with good and bad as they come in real life. Thanks fro sharing this me and my subscribers (all 8 of them)

[@MartenElectric]

Yes next video please. Great to learn from the pro who says it the way it is.

[@narsimha5648]

Useful video, good to know the challenges of Electronics manufacturing who are planning to enter the sector

[@estreyatech]

Great video! Thank you!

[@adaptivedesign8795]

I'm glad you like it!

[@Andrew-rc3vh]

It seems to me a lot of the labour comes about because you are trying to be a general manufacturer. Supposing you produced your own products and marketed them, then it simplifies the business substantially. You would then invest in the automation you need to do one specific job. You also have control over the design process so you can organise your design so it is the cheapest for you to manufacture, given the tools you currently have. Another point is China is making its own machines now. Robot intelligence is proportional to its computing power, so old machines are a bit like old computers and were for an age where more of the work was manual. China is starting to develop powerful AI and machine vision. One thing I see in quite a few Chinese factories is they build the machines themselves from modular parts. These are cheap and generic, so if they need to be replaced you don't get ripped. Another trick is to buy a old high quality machine and computerise it yourself with stepper motors and controllers, such as manual CNC machines.

[@adaptivedesign8795]

Hi Andrew, Thanks for the great comment. I am actually building my own stuff (or to be more precise building what I designed which in turn is tailored for my own capabilities). We are making money from design activities hence the name (Adaptive Design) the manufacturing side has grown after the design because of my customers asking for more and more. In work I feel like a kid in the candy store. Thanks for the comment I agree 100%. Aurelian

[@edumation]

Thank you; very informative and life saving!

[@adaptivedesign8795]

Glad you like it!

[@RogovAB]

Nice talk! I think the difference in prices is because of all parts and components are originally manufactured in China, even genuine brands. What is the main reason to purchase manufacturing in west Europe, rather than in China? What are the advantages? Thanks!

[@adaptivedesign8795]

Most of the electronic parts are not manufactured in China, Analog Devices (which includes Linear, Maxim) Texas Instruments, Micron, ST Micro, Infineon, NXP, Intel, AMD etc. The main reason to buy locally is trust, second is jurisdiction (if case you get in a legal dispute) third is communication (language barriers, social barriers etc.)

[@marios2liquid]

Very nice, im about to get a similar line (700 instead of 2000 jukis) as a maker that spent many years in factories in China doing my PCBs.. I really like your honesty! I will also make some videos about this topic!

[@adaptivedesign8795]

Hi There, Thanks for the nice comment, and good luck with your business I have two 760L that I'm not using (in working condition) if you know someone who need them ....

[@marios2liquid]

@@adaptivedesign8795 I dropped you a message on your website! Thanks for the reply.

[@annawan4544]

Hey,Gettleman well-done

[@adaptivedesign8795]

Thanks!

[@KaboomMaja]

Thank You Sir for sharing your experience!

[@adaptivedesign8795]

I might have sounded grumpy in that video, in reality running such a business has a lot of positive moments and satisfaction, if you like what you are doing. Happy to share some more in the future. Have fun!

[@thamminenivasu21]

Vvvvvvvv good video

[@adaptivedesign8795]

Thanks!

[@jinsppaulose]

Well Said..👍

[@davidprice875]

fascinating and informative, thank you.

[@adaptivedesign8795]

I'm glad you find it interesting

[@ridaelchami4011]

Good job. Waiting for your next video

[@adaptivedesign8795]

I will try my best