Interview with Robert Boguski, President of Datest Corporation

Publication date: 06 November 2009

Interview with Robert Boguski, President of Datest Corporation

Founded in 1984, Datest Corporation identified a lack of professional outsourcing support in the circuit test industry. Originally partnered with a CRM company, Datest opened its doors and began to perform steadily, ultimately becoming one of the most trusted testing houses in the industry. While new and different technologies emerge, Datest is here to take on the challenge of learning and supporting these new processes and today offers the testing platforms of the three major ATE manufacturers, as well as flying probe testing.

Q. Rob, we understand that you have recently taken over as president and owner of Datest Corp. What does this mean for the company?

A. It means rumors of the death of Datest are greatly exaggerated. With this change in ownership, Datest is emerging from a period of benign neglect to confidently regain a leadership position among the driving forces of the test services industry.

Q. Denver Test and Datest recently teamed to provide turnkey ICT solutions. How will this new partnership benefit customers?

A. The partnership will enable smaller OEMs and EMS providers to leverage the qualitative advantages of testing without the onerous capital expenditure. Denver Test Systems provides the hardware, while Datest furnishes the engineering and programming expertise. This “one-stop shopping” concept is a win-win for our customers in that it allows them to compete head-on with larger, more capital equipment-endowed contract manufacturers effectively, using the Datest/Denver Test partnership as their own testing department.

Q. Through this new partnership, Denver Test and Datest are offering customers a thorough analysis of testing requirements. What does this include?

A. It includes an Equipment Needs Analysis (both hardware- and financial-based), which then prompts an integrated team approach to the customer’s requirements. To be clear: This is not a “One Size Fits All” approach. We tailor our services and our solutions to the customers’ priorities, problems to be solved and, last but not least, budget.

Q. The service is said to provide an effective testing solution to meet current needs in a timely way, contributing to significant user savings when compared to OEM pricing. How is this accomplished?

A. Our team supplies fully reconditioned HP/Agilent, Teradyne/Zehntel, or GenRad in-circuit test systems. We also offer flexible financing terms. For example, equipment may be rented or leased either at the customer’s site or remotely. Test development then is performed at highly competitive engineering rates, resulting in fully debugged, installed, and production-ready test programs, again either at our facility, for immediate implementation, or onsite at the customer’s facility.

Q. We understand that Datest recently has added Agilent 5DX inspection capability to its list of service offerings. How will this help customers cut costs and protect margins in manufacturing environments?

A. This helps in four significant ways:
1. By identifying and feeding back systemic process defects and process deviation indicators.
2. By confirming known or suspected defects at specific locations; BGAs, for example.
3. As a troubleshooting tool to resurrect failed boards and recover seemingly “lost” revenue.
4. As a complement and an enhancement to our other test platforms (ICT, Flying Probe, Boundary Scan), to be used in tandem with them as a complete suite of services, thus offering the customer maximum test coverage and maximum value for the testing dollar.

Q. Datest is currently undergoing a great deal of changes. Should we expect any other new developments from the company in the near future?

A. We have big plans to expand and augment the boundaries of board testing. These include the following services, which we plan to introduce soon:
• Failure analysis
• Full electromechanical DFT (Design for Testability) analysis
• DFM (Design for Manufacturing) analysis
• Training in IPC-A-600 Series Specifications
• J-STD-001 Training
• Process Management Consulting