Company Profile: NBS Design
Company Profile
NBS Design
Those who do not believe the electronics industry is still growing strong should have followed us to Santa Clara
this week, where we witnessed the most recent expansion of tier three manufacturer NBS Design. Rather
incredibly, the name stands for ‘No Bullshit,’ and it is not till you absorb the passion, verging on paranoia,
exhibited by the NBS team that you begin to realize, they are not joking!
NBS was founded in 2004 by its years experience running test systems. Comparing his changeover teams to
charismatic CEO, Craig Arcuri. Both The new facility in Santa Clara is Formula One pit stop crews, he aims for
Craig and many of the senior management a 40,000 sq. ft, state of the art factory. a DPMO of 200–300 and has recently
came from experienced multi-nationals, Locating their Silicon Valley factory in achieved as low as 31.
such as Flextronics and IBM. The Santa Clara was no accident either. Due NBS are evidence of a growing breed
company started life as a layout shop to the presence of INTEL in the town, of tier two, three and four EMS companies
in a smaller building across town. From Santa Clara has the cleanest electricity that are fairing very well by concentrating
small beginnings, they expanded to other supply in the United States. The facility on spreading the risk across a larger
locations, opening offices in southern currently runs 3 lines in two shifts and has customer base and focusing on quality
California, Texas and New Hampshire in plans to install a 4th line in the coming and continuous investment in their plant
the United States, and Jakarta, Indonesia. weeks. Current output is around 50 jobs equipment.
The Santa Clara, Texas and Jakarta per week, 20 of which are from new The future looks bright for NBS, and
facilities all undertake board assembly and customers. that’s no bullshit.
final box build as well. However, NBS’s The factory is managed by partner
design expertise is a large part of the and production manager Michael Kottke
successful formula that makes them the whose attention to detail is fanatical. Trevor Galbraith.
‘dark-horse’ of the valley, manufacturing a
mixture of medical, military and industrial
automation for over 200 customers, some
who are tier one manufacturers.
Designs are created on a Cadence
Allegro system, which produces the
layout and BOM lists that are thoroughly
checked and approved by the production
team. The system also produces the
Manufacturing Process Information (MPI)
that enables fast and efficient turnaround
of jobs.
Another component of NBS’s
successful strategy is to use ‘best-in-class’
equipment and materials. “JUKI and BTU
are a big part of our success,” said Craig
Arcuri at the opening ceremony press
conference. It was clear from our visit
that the NBS team had a close working
relationship with all their vendors.
The final, and some would say most
critical, component of their success is
their investment in Agilent AOI and 5DX
x-ray machines to test every board that
comes off the line. NBS pride themselves
in the fact that no bad boards leave their
factory, and I guess that is where the ‘No
Bullshit’ comes in. The test department is
“JUKI and BTU are a big part of our success,” said Craig Arcuri, pictured here (right) with JUKI president Bob Block,
headed by Peter Tidman, who has over 15
at the new facility’s opening ceremony.
36 – Global SMT & Packaging - August 2008
www.globalsmt.net
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