Editor's Note: This column originally appeared in the October 2011 issue of The PCB Magazine.

In 1999, just as North America began to see a significant shift to offshore manufacturing, Fastprint rose up in Shenzhen, China, as a promising low-cost PCB manufacturer.

Just a dozen years later, Fastrprint has grown to boast a roster of 4000 customers, 2,500 employees and several offices worldwide. Not only that, Fastprint is a high-tech, quick-turn company that has embraced the principles of Lean manufacturing.

Sunny Lao, Overseas Sales Manager for Fastprint, met recently with Marcy LaRont to discuss Fastprint’s accomplishments as well as the risks and benefits of serving customers globally.

Marcy LaRont: Hi Sunny. Thanks for sitting down with me today to talk about Fastprint. Your company has grown significantly since 1999. Can you give us a brief history of Fastprint?

Sunny Lao: Shenzhen Fastprint is the largest high-tech, quick-turn prototype (high-mix, small- and medium-volume) PCB design and manufacturing service provider in Asia. We were founded when Fastprint created a manufacturing facility in Shenzhen’s High-Tech Industry Park, which today continues to serve as our headquarters. In 2008, we broke ground on an 8,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility in Guangzhou’s Science City, also in South China. This new facility combines administrative offices, a research area, and prototype and production scale manufacturing spaces. We can now provide a full array of manufacturing and engineering services for our customers, including hardware design solutions through our partners. All of this has given Fastprint a market advantage in drawing a broad range of customers. Our 2010 annual sales reached 800 million RMB, which was a 60% increase year-on-year.

Marcy: Of the many things Fastprint has achieved over the past dozen years, is there any particular achievement that stands out above the others?

Sunny: There are really several things. Our new facility in Guangzhou is certainly a significant milestone for us. However, on June 18, 2010, our company was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (symbol code 002436), becoming the first listed PCB prototype manufacturing company on that exchange. That is a crowning achievement for Fastprint, and one of which we are extremely proud. It is something that makes us unique among our competitors, giving us a competitive edge globally. We also believe it underscores the quality and breadth of our capabilities and confirms our business prowess.

Marcy: Sunny, what do you find to be the biggest challenge doing business today? Being an offshore company for the North American and European markets, you may have a very different perspective than many of your global competitors.