Can you comment on how much effort is being put into automating the board design, and how soon you think the design fee is likely to drop?

I think you are asking exactly what efforts are put into the board once someone designs it in ALC. To be honest: it primarily goes through the same general steps as most of our boards - ALC Operations Team designs it; PCBs are ordered; once PCBs are received, it goes through the pick & place, reflow, inspection, and packaging; finally, the boards are sent using our standard fulfillment/shipping. Does that help?

I was more asking about "ALC Operations Team designs it" - the obvious goal would be for you to automate as much of this as possible, I just wondered how much work (if any) has gone into that so far, even if it's not being used yet on customer boards.

Ya this is what I was thinking this was when I first saw it, until I saw the price.