In-House Manufacturing: Why We Do It

Here is a transcript of the video:

Ted: Almost everyone I’ve talked to from our customer base, we’ve had this conversation about how we actually build things in Kansas City. They love that story. There’s a certain amount of pride that’s like, hey, we’re actually able to do this here. It is a lot of work, but it’s work that’s worth doing.

Paul: Everybody takes pride in making things themselves, and the more things that we can bring in-house, the more we can grow our sense of pride throughout the company.

Ted: Ted Conrad, CEO of FireBoard Labs.

Paul: Paul Skelton, I’m the director of product design and development.

Ted: We got into manufacturing back in 2019. All the electronic components and how all those fit onto the board, essentially that whole process is called printed circuit board assembly. Up until 2019, we had an outside firm do that here in Kansas City. But their business was expanding, so their lead times were beginning to get longer and longer, and really at that moment, I kinda said to myself, “You know what? We really need to take control of this production and we really need to bring this in-house.” And we basically came up to speed with a printed circuit board assembly line in about 2 1/2 months. And that was, you know, getting the machines on purchase order, having the machines shipped, moving into a new space that could accommodate the machines and high voltages. That was a fast and crazy deal in early 2019, but that’s really what started us out doing our manufacturing here in-house.

Paul: We have a full SMT line, we have conformal coating, we have selective solder – so we’re able to make all of our electronics in-house. If you’re able to be a part of the development process with the suppliers, you can address things that might go unnoticed before you get parts from an overseas supplier. We can get those parts in our hands sooner, we can make decisions about the quality of those parts that will affect the perception of the customer in the end.

Ted: The big thing is the supply chain, right, so we would order components ourselves. What that gives you is more control if you decide hey look, there’s a component that we think is going to be scarce, we can decide we’re going to stockpile, or we’re going to get a larger safety stock of that component and that mitigates the risk that we would have some issue down the road. The other thing is quality, you know, we can build a better product if we see at the very moment the board is coming out of the machine that we need to make an adjustment.

Paul: Sometimes there are things that happen during the development of the product that can change the way the parts are designed for the enclosures. So being able to quickly visit the supplier or have conversations that will change the way the parts are designed and manufactured would help us work through issues that come up in the middle of testing. So being able to work with suppliers that are right around the corner or even the next state over helps us take some of that lead time out of the equation.

Ted: And the other part is doing it here in the US, here in Kansas City. It’s a really nice story to tell that hey, we’re not just buying everything from overseas. I think it’s important for the US to still have production. We can’t outsource everything. I think the biggest thing we want to convey to other businesses and consumers is that it can be done. So we can be a leader in bringing everything in-house, and I think that’s important for everybody to see because it helps people take that next step. If you’re reliant on someone else for everything, that’s a problem. And so I think some people probably need to be encouraged, like hey it’s a lot of work, but it’s work that’s worth doing.