Why A Healthy Prototype Pipeline Signals A Strong Future For Manufacturing with Eurociruits' Dirk Stans

From the bustle of Productronica 2025, I sit down with Eurocircuits’ Managing Partner Dirk Stans to decode what a strong prototype pipeline really means for Europe’s electronics industry and why it’s one of the clearest signals that production will follow. Instead of chasing hype, we dig into the decisions that move the needle: smart digitization, tight production engineering, and using AI where it actually improves outcomes.

We walk through the regional waves that shape demand across Europe—why the north can surge while the south softens, and how a pan‑European footprint cushions those swings. The conversation gets specific about capacity strategy too: staying ready for organic growth without overextending, adding equipment where it unlocks throughput, and focusing investment on the translation layer from design data to machine instructions. That’s the difference between a fragile process and a resilient, repeatable one in high‑mix manufacturing.

AI shows up as a practical tool, not a miracle. Dirk explains how their custom optical inspection system handles thousands of unfamiliar components, why classic AOI falls short for prototypes, and how learning systems reduce false calls while catching real defects. With roughly 51,000 new parts added to their library each year—about a thousand a week—the data advantage compounds, informing smarter rules, faster setups, and better first‑pass yields. The takeaway is clear: when variety is the norm, the winners are the teams who turn messy inputs into reliable builds at speed.

If you care about innovation cycles, European electronics, and what it really takes to turn new designs into stable production, you’ll find plenty to apply in your own workflow. Follow the show, share this with a colleague who loves building things, and leave a review to tell us where you see the next wave forming.

EMS@C-Level is hosted by global inspection leaders Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Global Electronics Association (https://www.electronics.org)

You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.

Transcript

Setting The Market Context

Reading The Industry’s Mood

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello, I'm Philip Stoughton. I'm here on the Global Electronics Association booth at Productronica 2025 and I'm joined with Dirk joined by Dirk Stanz of Euro Circuits. Dirk, I wanted to talk to you about what's going on in the market. Yeah, let's focus on markets. I've you you've talked to Eric about politics and uh I know you I know you're passionate about that. But really, what I'm curious about is the mood of the industry at a show like this. It's it's a weather vein every couple of years. It feels like Germany particularly is a little bit in the doldrums. There's always been a phase of product development that has kind of pushed us out of each each um each downturn. Obviously, some companies are enjoying a big dividend as a lot of a rise in defence spend, but that isn't everybody. Automotive is down. I don't see that coming back in a big way. What do you see happening in the market and which you're kind of at the front end with prototypes, which industries are are treating you well at the moment?

Prototypes As Leading Indicator

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Well, Philip, we are we are not so much in in specific markets, we are in all the markets. Yeah. And uh because uh for a business like ours, prototypes and small series, you need to be broad. Yeah, you cannot uh focus on on one. But I'm not so I'm not so very pessimistic. I mean uh Eurosuckers is like the canary in the coal mine, uh the little bird that was used to uh detect gas in uh in the in the mines. Well, uh we are still doing well with uh prototypes and small series. We could always do better, of course. Uh but but it's it's still okay. So it means that prototypes are being made, yeah, and that's a good sign for tomorrow because no prototypes, no production. Yeah, absolutely. So I think it's a bit of a uh down at the moment, and uh, and you know, in we in Europe, especially in countries like Germany, we are very efficient in talking ourselves down.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Uh when when when we smell something that is not okay, then everything's shit. And and and but but on the other hand, uh if if tomorrow the sun shines again, it can go quickly in the other direction. Yeah, so basically the fundamentals are still there. We're making prototypes, so I think uh production uh should follow. Should follow. Should follow.

Regional Waves Across Europe

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah, if you see lots of new products introduction and you're as you say, the canary and the coal miner, if you weren't seeing any new business, that would be a real, yeah, a real major concern. When you look at it across, you know, I I mentioned we're in Germany, I mentioned that Germany seems to be particularly in the in doldrums, and a lot of people blame politics or whatever for that. I don't want to get into that, but there are obviously other other regions, the Scandinavian EMS industry seems to be doing pretty well, heavily outsourced. Um, how do you see the variations from your spot up there in the Netherlands? You kind of look north, look south, look east.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Well, in 35 years of doing business, um, it it was always the same thing. Economy in Europe is like a wave. Yeah, it rolls over the continent from the north to the south.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

So if the north is doing well, the south is doing less uh and and vice versa. So it's it's never booming everywhere at the same time. So that's also uh one of the things that uh the for which I'm glad that uh that we are a European player and that we have uh customers all over Europe. And yeah, for the moment uh the the North is doing quite well, but actually we are also doing quite well in uh in Germany, so um, so that's why I'm not too pessimistic about uh the coming years.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

No, no, it's moving in the right direction. What about you guys when you look at the development of your business over the coming years, assuming the market does continue to grow? What do you need to do? Do you need to be making more investments in the single site? Do you need to be adding locations? Do you need to be thinking about what your strategy is for the moment?

SPEAKER_00 4:11

For the moment, we have uh we have enough uh capacity to allow organic uh growth in our company, so there is no need to uh do whatever acquisition or whatever. Um so no, I uh we are feeling pretty comfortable, yeah. And um and adding uh extra machinery in assembly, for instance, it's not the biggest thing. We still have room, so uh no, we're good.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

And for you, it's part of the the initiative digitizing what you do, more transformation.

Digitization And Data To Machines

SPEAKER_00 4:42

That is that is absolutely true, and that is where and that is where our focus lies. And that is uh definitely in uh developing our visualizer uh further and further and further. And the second thing is in uh what I call production engineering. So, how do we drive these data that comes from the visualizer more directly to the production machines? And then uh, and those are definitely the fields where we invest the most at the moment.

AI’s Role In Inspection

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah, and do you see AI as being a catalyst? And we talked a lot about industry 4.0 over the last 10 years. I think it's given us some connectivity, it's given us the data, but it hasn't really given us that much value yet.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

AI is a buzzword, it's certainly not uh the Holy Ghost that came down to uh to bring us in a completely new era and to solve everything. But uh, yes, of course, we use it and uh and and we use it uh in in in different spots in um in manufacturing uh where it can help us definitely. Yeah, for instance, the the the optical inspection system that we created ourselves for our prototype uh inspection, their AI plays a very important role, but completely different than uh it would be in a traditional AOI machine because again, we are dealing with many, many, many new components that we see every day. So uh it's it's a different way of thinking.

High Mix Insights And Scale

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Yeah, but I think the way you do that and the way you deal with that incredibly high mix, very low volume, you're kind of at the at the vanguard of that, is interesting for other manufacturers that maybe have some of those challenges along with volume. Yeah, but seeing what you do with that because you do have so much data and you do have so much mixed data, um it's it's kind of uh it's kind of a blueprint for what maybe what others can do, but it's uh probably probably yes, uh, but but many of the other players in the markets they are indeed in the in the other way around.

Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Yeah, yeah. Very, very low mix and high volume. So um certainly compared to so the number of components we we see every year. If I tell you that uh all new parts that come to us uh per year, we add around 51,000 new parts in our uh library every year. That's a thousand parts a week, isn't it? That's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, it's a big deal. Well, keep doing what you're doing. You're obviously in a nice nice niche. Keep being the canary in the coal mine. I'll uh I'll keep checking in to make sure you're alive and well. Uh and we'll talk again soon. Thank you. Okay, thanks for the