Donner Company

Donner Company is a service oriented manufacturing company that makes printed circuit boards which were produced with the specifications of its customers. Since Donner was producing in small to medium size quantities with the requirements supplied by the different customers, it is basically a Job Shop. Its customers are a variety of electronic manufacturers who need these custom-made “Soldermask over bare copper” (SMOBC) boards as a part of their supply chain. Particularly, when these customers need large quantities of simple technology boards or small quantities with lots of special boards, they basically purchase from Donner. Additionally, company was specialized in making these SMOBC for experimental devices and pilot production runs. Essentially, Donner was handling low-volume with high customization products. The company strategy was being more adept than its competitors in creating prototypes of new designs and anticipating resolving any problems associated with these designs. Most of the company’s managers were experienced engineers from the industry with patents on the applications, processes and modifications to the commercial industry.

The printed circuit boards manufacturing process can be divided into 3 stages; preparation, image transfer, and fabrication (see Production Process Flow Chart). The company has 3 people responsible for supervision at various stages, Diana Schnabs (the expediter), Bruce Altmeyer (the Design Engineer), and David Flaherty (The shop Supervisor). Schnabs coordinated serving rush orders by keeping track of delays in the process of manufacturing and making sure that customers were informed about possible delays. Altmeyer was responsible for the design of computer control and analyzing the customer’s artwork and requirements. Flaherty was in charge of overall manufacturing process from orders to shipping. Basically, when order was received, price was quoted based on the estimations of labor and material costs. Based