Central Circuits (www.circuits.ccza.com) was formed in 1994 and occupies a modern 3000 m² production facility in the Highveld Techno Park in Centurion. The company employs a workforce of some 55 highly skilled engineers, technicians and manufacturing operators.
Only the best raw materials, processes and methods are used during manufacture and there is continued training of staff. The company is driven by the need to produce the highest levels of quality and customer satisfaction and the company is obviously certified to ISO 9001:2000. Central Circuits was founded by Derek van Basten and Adrian Snyman, both engineers from the defence industry, the latter remaining as a large customer today. Customers of repute for Central Circuits include Denel Optronics (DOS) and Denel Aerospace (DAS), Avitronics, M-TEK, Atlas, LIW, Reunert, Parsec, IST, ATE and Nanoteq.
The move to the new building in the Techno Park during 2001 was into custom-built premises. The change made Central Circuits physically closer to many of its important customers (DOS, DAS, Avitronics, Nanoteq, M-TEK, etc) and allowed the plant to be laid out in a more logical way so as to improve efficiency and productivity. The building itself cost Central Circuits in excess of R13,5 million.
Central Circuits designs and manufactures the full range of board products, including single side, double side and multilayer. For multilayer boards the maximum number of layers is 18 and the maximum thickness of a 10-layer board is for example 1,6 mm. Component holes are down to 0,4 mm in diameter while via holes are typically 0,2 mm. The tolerance on finished hole size is ±0,1 mm. The maximum size for multilayer boards is 456 x 260 mm, while for single and double-sided it is 380 x 510 mm.
Everything is done in-house and a turnkey service can be provided which includes design and manufacturing. Using subcontractors, the company can even offer fully populated boards. Central Circuits has deliberately created redundancy in terms of equipment so that it always has capacity for urgent work. While double shift operation is common, three shifts is also possible.
Although Central Circuits has a well-defined standard capability, the company is always ready and willing to try something unusual. It views the impossible as a challenge and over the years has been able to come to the rescue of several customers whose PCB manufacture was turned down by other manufacturers.
Each job in progress can be tracked on the company's custom software as every item going through is tagged with a bar code. A call from a customer regarding delivery can immediately be checked by typing in the job number on a PC, and for repeat jobs the number of finished boards in stock can be instantly called up (for smaller PCBs, the step and repeat board often contains more PCBs than the quantity ordered). If a specific job falls behind it is immediately flagged and extra resources are allocated to get it back on schedule. The software even makes quoting a trivial task as the details of the board required are entered and the program, based on historical data linked to current costs per hour, spits out the cost.
Standard delivery times are 10 days for single, double-sided boards, and multilayers, but the common delivery times for single, double and multilayer boards are three, five and seven days respectively. These times can be improved on with the so-called 'Rush Delivery', a service that, of course, comes at a price premium. The quickest turnaround times for single and double-sided PCBs are the same day, depending on factory load and the time of delivery of the data pack. To manufacture boards, Gerber files are usually required but the design department can help if there is no Gerber data. While customer's design data are not stored or archived, Gerber data is and may be available even several years after the last production run.
In terms of quality, Central Circuits has been certified to the new ISO 9001:2000 by SGS.
Besides satisfying the needs of the local market, Central Circuits also exports, although this business has been hit by rand strength. It should be remembered that our regular airline connections to Europe and the Middle East, together with effective Courier service, ensures that PCBs are on the desk of the customer the day after completion.
The original niche identified for Central Circuits was for a company that could provide rapid turnaround on complex circuit boards in relatively small volumes. Under CEO Derek van Basten this goal has been achieved and the company is looking forward to further future growth.
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