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Are the days of simply building boards and shipping them out the door coming to an end? For PCB fabricators and electronics manufacturers alike, diversification is moving from a growth strategy to one of survival. Supply chain disruptions, geopolitical uncertainty, tariff fluctuations, and accelerating technology cycles are forcing companies to rethink how they create value for customers.
At Flexible Circuit Technologies (FCT), that has meant expanding beyond world-class flex circuit manufacturing into assembly, vertical integration, and a growing global footprint. Ray Cottrell, executive vice president of business development, discusses why diversification matters, how FCT is evolving from a supplier to a strategic partner, and what manufacturers should ask themselves as they prepare for the next wave of industry change.
Marcy LaRont: Ray, when we spoke two years ago, you had just joined FCT and were focusing on an important expansion area for the company. First, take a moment to reintroduce yourself.
Ray Cottrell: I'm the executive vice president of business development at FCT and inTFlex, our flex and EMS divisions, respectively. Since Troy Koopman started the business 26 years ago, our core focus has been on value-added flex design combined with world-class Asian manufacturing.
LaRont: Thank you, Ray. This month, we are talking about diversification. A couple of years ago, FCT was looking to build up its assembly operations and grow inTFlex. How did Troy come to those decisions?
Cottrell: It is appropriate to first provide some historical context. FCT has seen a lot of change over the course of almost three decades in business, and the customer has always been at the center of our strategic decisions.
Our customer base is diverse, with EMS and OEMs. We will continue to provide only flex solutions to our EMS partners, unless they request FPCAs. But early on, we had major medical and consumer partners needing advanced flexible circuits and value-added manufacturing services. We needed to invest in new facilities and services to support them, which led to the expansion of our flexible circuit capabilities, including assembly and full turnkey manufacturing.
Over the past two years, we have seen new disruptions arising from market needs, geopolitical risks, and tariff uncertainty. FCT has been adapting to that while planning initiatives to better position us to support our clients now and in the future. We continually ask ourselves, “How can we bring additional value to our clients around our core engineering strength?” To that end, we have increased our printed electronics division, expanded our flex offering to include catheters, and offer a low-cost manufacturing strategy with world-class facilities in China and Thailand.
We have also added injection molding with sterilization for medical products and expanded our EMS offerings in China and Thailand that complement our strong engineering presence in the U.S. Our design for excellence (DFX) approach provides incremental value for our clients throughout a product’s life cycle.
To continue reading this interview, which originally appeared in the July 2026 edition of I-Connect007 Magazine, click here.
