Printed Circuit Corporation's Business Approach
PCC had traditionally operated in the mid-range segment, providing boards to New England based minicomputer companies. Sarmanian bought state-of-the-art equipment to keep pace with the industry, but he always did it as a follower. At the beginning of the 1980s, Sarmanian saw that volumes in the low-end were beginning to explode and decided to diversify. By 1995, only 50% of PCC's revenues came from its traditional mid-range customers; the other 50% came from low-end consumer electronics manufacturers. By 1995 his company was a $20 million a year business. However, this low-end high-volume strategy got the company into financial trouble when the market for video game cartridges for the Atari and Intellivision systems collapsed.
By the early 1980s, offshore manufacturers had started low complexity, high volume fabrication. By the end of the decade, they dominated it. In this semi-automated, high volume process, the offshore producers were able to quote substantially lower prices due to cheap labor. By 1995, the consumer electronics manufacturers had moved virtually all their business to Asian fabricators. Because of this foray into the low-end, by 1995 PCC's profits had declined 90%. New management was brought in during 1996 and 1997 to help turn the company around.
New management shed the unprofitable low-end business to refocus on the mid- range, more technologically complex segment of the market. These changes were made ihttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Printed_Circuit_Corporation&action=edit§ion=2n time to capture some explosive growth. Historically, the PCB market had grown about 6% a year, but from 1995-2000 it grew at 10%. By 2000, the company's sales had increased to $30 million. Laser drilling, better solder masking for finishing printed circuitry, and semi-automated systems for electrical testing of finished boards were the major improvements needed to get to industry parity.
PCC named Glen Kashgegian president and COO in 2000.
In June 2001, Printed Circuit Corp. acquired the circuit board fabrication business of CPC in Randolph, MA.
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