Title
Interview
Paul van der Wansem —
BTU International
For decades, BTU international has been a leading supplier of advanced thermal processing equipment for electronics
manufacturing, which includes printed circuit board solder reflow and semiconductor packaging applications as well
as, for the past 15 years, thermal processing systems to the solar manufacturing industry. This year, the company has
expanded in the emerging alternative energy market with new process equipment for solar cell manufacturing, in addi-
tion to its existing products for nuclear fuel processing and the production of fuel cells.
The expansion includes the creation of a new Alternative Energy Business Group and two new, high-level appoint-
ments. John J. McCaffrey, Jr., has been appointed vice president of alternative energy in charge of engineering and
product development, and Douglas Lawson has joined BTU as vice president of alternative energy in charge of market-
ing and business development.
The company celebrated the opening of a new solar research and processess application laboratory in Shanghai,
China, this year. Another is in the works closer to home, in Billerica, Massachusetts.
Global Solar Technology recently spoke to BTU’s chairman, president and chief executive officer Paul Van der
Wansem, about the change in the company’s focus and how we might expect to see the company evolve over the coming
years.
Q1: We’ve been hearing a lot about BTU
in the solar market. How will your focus
on solar cell processing effect your
electronics assembly business?
Without question, the electronics
assembly business is vitally important to
BTU. It currently represents the majority
of BTU’s business, and it will for some
time. However, anyone who watches the
electronics industry can tell you that its
cyclicality can be a challenge to manage.
We hope that by diversifying into alterna-
tive energy applications we can achieve a
healthier balance of business. This will
directly benefit our electronics assembly
business by allowing us to maintain a larger
corps of engineering and development
staff, and will keep our factories and supply
chains running smoothly, regardless of the
business cycle—not to mention enabling us
BTU’s Paul va der Wansem, chairman, president and CEO.
to maintain and even expand our customer
service and support infrastructure. We
future technology breakthroughs to both we work on constantly. We are proud of
are currently increasing our headcount
markets. Also, for both markets we have our industry-leading Pyramax products that
by almost 10 percent, with many of the
an intense focus on reducing total cost of provide significantly reduced cost of owner-
new hires coming in the engineering and
ownership and are focusing our engineer- ship, achieved through a focus on uptime,
development area.
ing efforts in this area. For solar, reducing and reduced nitrogen and power consump-
Process-wise, there are a lot of similari-
the cost per watt is vital to the industry’s tion. Our latest Pyramax product, intro-
ties between the thermal steps for solar and
growth and sustainability. In electronics, duced at APEX 2008, is the Pyramax 75A,
electronics assembly. We hope to apply
cost pressure is not new and is something which has extremely low running costs.
24 – Global Solar Technology – September/October 2008 www.globalsolartechnology.com
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40