How Plaky Helps Technology Company Lepton-Quark Organize Their Production Processes

Do you know what printed circuit boards are? Most of the electronic devices you use every day (including the one you are using to read this) contain a printed circuit board.

We had an amazing opportunity to speak to Matevz Lovko, Production Manager at Lepton-Quark, a company that produces printed circuit boards. 

In our interview, he talks about:

• Lepton-Quark’s product and customers,
• His average day at work,
• How his team discovered Plaky, 
• How they use Plaky, and
• Who he would recommend our tool to.

If you want to find out how a small business utilizes Plaky to make their work faster and more efficient, read on! 

About Lepton-Quark

Lepton-Quark is a company that specializes in the development and assembly of circuit boards. While they are located in Slovenia, their circuit boards have a global reach and are part of many high-tech products all over the world. 

They collaborate with their customers throughout the entire production process — from the idea to the finished product. 

Matevz shared more details about the work they do:

“Lepton-Quark is an EMS production company. We are an electronic printed circuit board assembly production, specialized in SMT and THT soldering. So, we mostly service the electronics for other companies’ products.”

Lepton-Quark provides circuit boards for companies whose final products include: 

• EV charging stations, 
• Cargo and personal elevators, 
• Railway safety electronics for road crossings, and more.

Their hard work and quality are gaining recognition, so the demand for their products is growing. As a result, Lepton-Quark is steadily expanding: 

“We are a small-to-midsize company that currently counts 38 workers across all departments. But market demand is forcing us to expand, so we are moving to a new, modern building, and we plan to increase our headcount to 50 workers by the end of this summer.”

They pride themselves on having talented workers and qualified managers, and Matevz points out they are more than just coworkers: “We are one big family.”

The story behind the name Lepton-Quark

Lepton-Quark is an interesting name for a company, and we were intrigued to know why they decided on it. 

Matevz tells us the name comes from electrophysics — more specifically, it refers to how atoms react to and bind the electromagnetic force. He likens the company to this binding force:

“We all know that atoms make up everything, but the things that connect atoms are leptons, and the smallest parts of leptons are quarks. So, like leptons and quarks, we are one small but very important part that connects the whole working end product for our customers.”

Matevz’s average day at work

Matevz has been working at Lepton-Quark since it was founded. He is involved in the work of various departments in the company:

“I work as Production Manager in this company, but because we are a small-sized company, I also need to be present in more or less all areas of the company like material department, storage, sales, technical answering to our clients, planning…”

The position of a production manager comes with many responsibilities, and we can see from Matevz’s experience that it requires dedication and hard work:

“My work starts early in the morning and ends late in the afternoon or sometimes even at night. This is the kind of work that requires you to be available at least 14 hours per day.”

This comes as no surprise when you take into account the number of projects they manage. We were in awe when we found out just how many projects Matevz and his team have to juggle at once:

“Because we are a flexible company that deals with small to medium-sized production quantities, we always operate with around 60–80 active projects at the same time. So, we need to know in which stage they are and which one is the priority.”

How Lepton-Quark discovered Plaky

Metevz explains they found out about Plaky from one of their colleagues:

“If I remember correctly, one of his friends works [for CAKE.com] on a different project. The two of them discussed our problems with controlling the process of many projects.”

He describes the process of introducing Plaky to their business:

“We tried a pilot version of Plaky, then we upgraded it, introduced it to the company, and implemented it into the process.”

The company had already been using another software, but decided it would not suit their needs when it came to organizing production: 

“We have software used for managing the overall company workflow, but it was rigid in terms of managing the production plan, and if we upgraded it to suit our needs, it would cost us a lot of time and money.”

Several factors helped them decide on Plaky. What was important for them was that:

• The board appealed to everyone, 
• Anyone could correct or update the status anytime,
• They could easily make changes and leave comments, and 
• They could make a new board, try it for a while, and then either use it or correct it again.

How Plaky helps Lepton-Quark in their daily work

Matevz noticed at the very beginning that Plaky made his work easier.

Let’s see precisely how Plaky helps Matevz’s team with their work. 

Plaky eliminates the need for one-on-one questions and directions

With Plaky, you can keep all the relevant information in one place, available to everyone who needs it. This eliminates the need for repetitive questions. 

Now, all department leaders in Lepton-Quark have access to the necessary information:

“…all department leaders first look at the production plan. Everything is marked there: the priority, the handling, special comments, so there is no need to ask me silly questions”

Plaky is a great team collaboration tool since it enables you to communicate with your teammates directly in tasks. 

You can leave comments on tasks and even @mention a teammate if you want to address them directly. When you post a comment everyone who is subscribed to a task will receive a notification. 

You can also create a priority status field to have a clear view of which tasks are the priority and require your immediate attention and which can wait. 

Plaky improves the overall organization of work

Matevz’s team has found that the table view in Plaky helped them organize work:

“We made a custom table and determined who needs to fill what up. This way, the department leaders know when they will get the parts they need and can prepare all pre-processes so that production can start the moment the parts arrive.”

You can organize all your work within a single Plaky board and have a clear picture of all your projects and tasks. It provides you with:

• Table and Kanban view, 
• Customizable fields (such as status, priority, date, person, etc.)
• Sort and filter options,
• A rich project management template gallery, and more.  

Who would Matevz recommend Plaky to?

When we asked Matevz if he would recommend Plaky to other businesses, he had no doubts about it:

“Yes, absolutely. It is very useful for all types of businesses, regardless of what they do because they can use a standard template or table or just create one that will be useful for them.”

Matevz admits it’s difficult to give advice to other managers out there because their field of management may differ from his. Still, he lists some specific situations in which it would be useful to have Plaky:

• If you work in an environment that is constantly changing,
• If the project needs a lot of guidance,
• If you need to constantly check project details, 
• If you have to answer a lot of (repetitive) questions every day. 

Matevz is more than happy to use Plaky for task management and team communication:

“[Plaky] will help you a lot, and you will achieve more, without having to always be there to answer questions.”

Wrapping up: Plaky can help any team be better organized and more efficient

Managing production processes is a complex endeavor that requires a lot of time and effort, as evidenced by Matevz’s story. So, we were happy to hear Plaky helped Matevz’s team be more organized and made his job easier. 

Lepton-Quark seems to have found exactly what they needed in Plaky. 

But, as Matevz points out, Plaky would be a useful addition to any business, regardless of the field of work:

“You could be a cook in a restaurant or a production manager, and you could create a task management board that suits your needs. The most important thing is that you can always change or add another fixture to it if you need it, it takes just a minute of your time.“