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Royal Circuit Solutions has factories in Hollister and Santa Fe Springs, Ca. Our goal these past fifteen years has been to become the fastest PCB manufacturer in North America.
Late last year we also completed construction on a brand new manufacturing facility. The new factory has manufacturing stations in compartmentalized rooms with glass doors and separate air-flow to maintain a semi-cleanroom environment. We didn’t know it at the time, but we had inadvertently created a COVID-19 compliant workspace.
Those two decisions: to be fast, and to be clean, positioned us perfectly to help out during the pandemic response. When our long-time customer Medtronic called and asked us to increase production of the circuit boards for their PB840 and PB80 respirators, we had the capability and the capacity to start manufacturing the boards within the hour.
This is what we have been doing three shifts a day for the last several months -- running every machine we have to pump out Medtronic circuit boards for ventilators that will eventually save someone’s life. However, that is not all we are making -- we have other customers that are as critical to supply-chain infrastructure as Medtronic -- so we support them too.
Economic Turn Around
At some point, life will return to normal. Companies that invent and invest in research and development now will be well-positioned to come out of the economic down-turn quickly with fresh products that customers are excited to buy. That’s what will stimulate the economy.
If one of our customers sells a million devices with a printed circuit board in them, that's a product that will be in warehouses across the nation, which means truck drivers have something to drive, and warehouse workers have products to stock. A salesperson at a big-box store who sells the product now has a salary coming in that they can spend on groceries. Everyone is connected, and if we can help one of our customers succeed, we can all succeed.
Not all jobs and not all companies are going to survive this prolonged shutdown. We can’t do much about that. But our customers have helped us grow and succeed, and when they hurt, we hurt. We asked our sales-team to pivot from “Sell” to “Be Well.” We aren’t calling our customers to see if we can make their board. We’re calling to see how they’re doing -- do they need a shoulder to cry on? A fellow parent to vent to? Do they need a box of fruit? Do they need a bottle of wine to relax? We’ve known and worked with many of our customers for decades -- you can’t work with someone that long and not be a friend who cares how they are doing.
Environmental Conservancy
When bad things happen in this world, the least powerful among us suffer the most. This lead us to think about how we might be able to do something to help outWe partnered with Digi-Key Electronics and Advanced Assembly to donate printed circuit boards, components, and assembly to any educational or non-profit environmental or animal-conservancy project that needs it.
During economic down-turns, donations decrease. That is a problem because donations are the life’s-blood of nonprofits. Our offer of free circuit boards will eliminate one of the highest-cost line-items in their limited budgets. At the same time, the work these researchers are doing will help to improve the world we live in and reduce the suffering of the animals that are on it.
If you work in an education or non-profit setting on environmental, animal-conservancy, or a similar field and would like to apply for free circuit boards, please visit us here.