Florida-based MC Assembly, a leading mid-tier electronics manufacturer, is harnessing the power of the Florida sun with its new solar panel array at its Melbourne manufacturing location.

The new 72-panel 6 array system is capable of producing 21,600 watts, saving the company an estimated 42,000-kilowatt hours (Kwh) per year. The project was overseen and installed by Brevard Solar.

“We believe in being a positive part of our community and making thoughtful, environmentally friendly contributions to the places we work and live in,” said George Moore, president and CEO of MC Assembly. “Environmental initiatives like our new solar panel project are aimed at reducing our impact on the environment while also shrinking our carbon footprint.”

The solar panels are the latest energy-conscious initiative from MC Assembly. Last year, the company introduced several initiatives to help lead the way for the manufacturing industry to be better stewards of the environment. These initiatives include local volunteering, the introduction of a water recycling system at its Melbourne facility, recycling initiatives companywide, reduced power consumption and on-site nitrogen generation.

Reducing Power Consumption with LEDs In addition to installing the new 72-panel 6 array solar panel system, MC Assembly’s Boston facility installed high efficiency LED lighting in its shop floor saving approximately $1,200 per month in lighting costs. MC Assembly’s Melbourne headquarters is in the process of purchasing and installing new LED lighting fixtures to replace about 880 current bulbs.

The LEDs are plug replaceable with fluorescent representing a significant reduction in power usage of approximately 41,200 kilowatt hours per year. Company officials estimate they save about $4,120 per year in electric costs. There are plans to install LED lighting in MC Assembly’s Mexico facility as well.

Reducing Annual Water Consumption by 74 Percent In 2016, MC Assembly installed a Closed Loop Process Water Recycling System in its Melbourne headquarters, reducing annual water consumption by more than 74 percent. The water savings totals more than 3 million gallons annually, reducing waste while reallocating water usage into a more efficient and eco-friendly system. Both the Boston and Mexico facilities also use similar closed loop water systems for the PCBA cleaning process.

Robust Recycling Programs All three MC Assembly facilities recycle plastics, cardboard and metals to reduce landfill waste. Last year alone, MC Assembly recycled more than 25 tons of manufacturing material. The company has also invested in equipment to recycle solder dross, reducing the solder waste by 70 percent.

On-Site Nitrogen Generator In electronics manufacturing, nitrogen plays an important role. Nitrogen is used to reduce the oxidation and dross build up in the Ersa and Wave soldering machines and can be used in the SMT machines. In its previous Florida facility, MC Assembly needed to truck in nitrogen every month. When it moved into its new Melbourne facility, instead of moving the nitrogen silo, MC Assembly installed an on-site nitrogen generator.

“It’s simply looking for new ways to solve day-to-day problems,” said Thomas Hansen, Vice President of Operations for MC Assembly. “We’re committed to being environmental stewards in the areas where we do business.”

Florida-based Electronics Manufacturer MC Assembly, a leading mid-tier electronics manufacturer, continues to invest in its promise to provide quality electronic component production with the addition of new Keyence digital scopes, measurement and laser marking equipment.

The new technology, which includes KEYENCE includes 2000X 3D digital scopes, Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMM) and laser marking machines, have been installed at the company’s three North America manufacturing facilities.

According to Lee Arrowood, director of quality for MC Assembly, the capital investment in the equipment is rare for a mid-tier electronics manufacturer and is one more example of how MC Assembly is committed to providing its customers with the best possible results.

“Our intent is to always provide the best possible results and outcomes for our customers,” Arrowood said. “Our latest investment is an example of that commitment.”

KEYENCE 2000X 3D Digital Scopes (VHX-950F) Installed at the company’s Melbourne, Florida facility as well as its Boston and Mexico locations, this super-type microscope helps perform failure and critical analysis.

The digital scopes are a reliability tool that can deliver up to 500x the magnification, verifying that all of the printed circuit board layers have connections. The digital scope provides confirmation that each PCB MC Assembly produces meets its industry standards.

KEYENCE Coordinate Measuring Machine (XM Series) Computerized coordinate measuring machines have also been installed at the company’s Boston and Mexico locations. All fabricated metal parts are able to be critically measured to a degree most other mid-tier manufacturers aren’t able to reach. Not only does this machine ensure the accuracy standards clients such as the DOD requires, but it also greatly reduces time spent during measurement. Adding this tool to MC Assembly’s production has helped further the company’s lean manufacturing efforts.

KEYENCE Laser Marking Machine At the company’s Mexico location, MC Assembly has also installed a laser marking machine, allowing for extremely accurate laser etching on printed circuit boards, thereby replacing traditional labeling. Due to the large output at the Mexico facility, the laser marking machine is important to the company’s lean manufacturing practices.

“For us as a company, these machines offer us the ability to provide the value, competitive cost and quality that our customers demand,” Arrowood said. “It’s just one more way that MC Assembly works to stand out among its competitors.”

MC Test Service Inc. (dba MC Assembly), a leader in electronics manufacturing, engineering, test, sustainment and support for advanced electronic systems and sub-systems assembly, has been awarded a new contract to support the United States Army Tank Command (TACOM) in Warren, Mich.

The new contract calls for MC Assembly to provide the manufacturing, engineering test and support of critical card assemblies for TACOM. MC Assembly will provide the reprogrammable circuit card assemblies used in the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank ballistic computer system. The application will support domestic and foreign applications.

“We’re honored for the opportunity to support the U.S. Army and our nation’s platforms,” said MC Assembly President and Chief Executive Officer George Moore. “We look forward to sustaining this application with the highest level of quality and reliability for many years to come.”

The TACOM announcement comes on the heels of MC Assembly being awarded a Defense Logistics Agency contract to support the manufacturing, engineering, test and support of an Analog-to-Digital Converter Module (ADCM) supporting the Fire Control Computer.

MC Assembly was also recently awarded a new contract by the United States Marine Corps (USMC) Logistics Command in Albany, Ga., to fabricate and test a Weapons Control Unit in support of USMC tactical ground vehicles.

Earlier this year, MC Assembly successfully completed a financial audit by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA).

“Our goal is to offer best-in-class services to our customers,” Moore said. “Our DCAA certification and recent government contract wins show that the federal government is taking notice of the quality and commitment of MC Assembly.”

MC Assembly is a world class manufacturing, engineering, test and support company that employs the latest in manufacturing technology to support defense and aerospace requirements. MC Assembly provides state-of-the-art electronics including electronic warfare sub-systems, tactical, transport, rotorcraft sub-systems, C4ISR products, intelligent networking, communications sub-systems and test systems.

MC Assembly is certified to quality standards AS9100, ISO9001:2008 and FAA. The electronics manufacturer also implements LEAN manufacturing processes.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

DCAA provides audit and financial advisory services to the Department of Defense (DoD) and other federal entities responsible for acquisition and contract administration. The primary function of the audit is to certify that a company’s accounting system is in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 16, which requires that a company must have adequate accounting systems in place to be awarded cost-reimbursement type contacts.

DCAA auditors conducted a month-long review against the check list Standard Form (SF) 1408 to determine MC Assembly’s accounting system is in compliance with government requirements.

“Obtaining DCAA approval is a major accomplishment and milestone for our government and defense business sector,” said MC Assembly President and Chief Executive Officer George Moore.

MC Assembly was also recently awarded a new contract by the United States Marine Corps (USMC) Logistics Command in Albany, Ga., to fabricate and test a Weapons Control Unit in support of USMC tactical ground vehicles.

The Weapons Control Unit supports the 50 caliber weapons systems and 140mm grenade launchers used on Amphibious Assault Vehicles; Interim Armored Vehicle (IAV) Strykers; Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles; Bradley fighting vehicles; and Light Armored Vehicles.

MC Assembly is a world class manufacturing, engineering, test and support company that employs the latest in manufacturing technology to support defense and aerospace requirements. MC Assembly provides state-of-the-art electronics including electronic warfare sub-systems, tactical, transport, rotorcraft sub-systems, C4ISR products, intelligent networking, communications sub-systems and test systems.

MC Assembly is certified to quality standards AS9100, ISO9001:2008 and FAA. The electronics manufacturer also implements LEAN manufacturing processes.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

MC Test Service Inc. (dba MC Assembly), a leader in electronics manufacturing, engineering, test, sustainment and support for advanced electronic systems and sub-systems assembly, has been awarded a new contract for the M1A2 Abrams main battle tank from the Defense Logistics Agency in Warren, Mich.

The Defense Logistics Agency is the Department of Defense’s combat logistics support agency. The new contract calls for MC Assembly to support the manufacturing, engineering, test and support of an Analog-to-Digital Converter Module (ADCM) supporting the Fire Control Computer.

The contract is an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract in support of new installations and depot repairs.

“We’re proud to support the Defense Logistics Agency with these enhancements to the M1A2 program to ensure that our warfighters are provided with the best possible products to perform their missions,” said MC Assembly President and Chief Executive Officer George Moore.

The news comes on the heels of MC Assembly successfully completing a financial audit by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA).

DCAA provides audit and financial advisory services to the Department of Defense (DoD) and other federal entities responsible for acquisition and contract administration. The primary function of the audit is to certify that a company’s accounting system is in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 16, which requires that a company must have adequate accounting systems in place to be awarded cost-reimbursement type contacts.

DCAA auditors conducted a month-long review against the check list Standard Form (SF) 1408 to determine MC Assembly’s accounting system is in compliance with government requirements.

MC Assembly was also recently awarded a new contract by the United States Marine Corps (USMC) Logistics Command in Albany, Ga., to fabricate and test a Weapons Control Unit in support of USMC tactical ground vehicles.

“As we continue to move forward with our defense contracting business, we are finding that the qualities that have made MC Assembly a leader in its field are the same qualities the U.S. government is looking for in its business partners today,” Moore said.

MC Assembly is a world class manufacturing, engineering, test and support company that employs the latest in manufacturing technology to support defense and aerospace requirements. MC Assembly provides state-of-the-art electronics including electronic warfare sub-systems, tactical, transport, rotorcraft sub-systems, C4ISR products, intelligent networking, communications sub-systems and test systems.

MC Assembly is certified to quality standards AS9100, ISO9001:2008 and FAA. The electronics manufacturer also implements LEAN manufacturing processes.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

The Weapons Control Unit supports the 50 caliber weapons systems and 140mm grenade launchers used on Amphibious Assault Vehicles; Interim Armored Vehicle (IAV) Strykers; Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles; Bradley fighting vehicles; and Light Armored Vehicles.

“We’re honored for the opportunity to support our United States Marines Corps and look forward to sustaining this protection system with the highest level of quality and reliability for many years to come,” said MC Assembly President and Chief Executive Officer George Moore.

MC Assembly is a world class manufacturing, engineering, test and support company that employs the latest in manufacturing technology to support defense and aerospace requirements. MC Assembly provides state-of-the-art electronics including electronic warfare sub-systems, tactical, transport, rotorcraft sub-systems, C4ISR products, intelligent networking, communications sub-systems and test systems.

MC Assembly is certified to quality standards AS9100, ISO9001:2008 and FAA. The electronics manufacturer also implements LEAN manufacturing processes.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

Thom Hansen, Vice President of Operations at MC Assembly’s Boston facility, is Team MC Assembly’s organizer. An experienced runner himself, Hansen said the walk is a great way to stay healthy while making a positive contribution to the community.

“When I was younger, I stayed motivated with my running by doing road races,” Hansen said. “However, I just didn’t want to sign up for races that weren’t tied to a good cause. I walked the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk several times to help raise money for a cure for cancer.”

Since starting in 1989, the Jimmy Fund Walk has raised more than $120 million for cancer care and research. Being a cancer survivor himself, Hansen said this cause is personally important to him, and knows many members of the MC Assembly staff feel the same way.

“If you think about it, you probably can’t talk to a person who has a friend or family member who hasn’t been impacted by cancer,” Hansen said. “It’s a terrible disease that I have personally seen impact so many lives. I lost my dad to cancer, my mom is a cancer survivor, and I’m a cancer survivor. I have lost friends, friends of friends, and co-workers to cancer. It’s the one thing that has always scared me. I want to do everything possible to help Dana-Farber, whether it’s by raising money to find a cure or supporting the many patients and families who help with this Jimmy Fund event.”

Nine members of the Boston staff have signed up to participate in the Jimmy Fund Walk. The team members, who represent every department at the facility, are: Chris Lupien, Thom Hansen, Chris Joyner, Kristin Casale, John Sloan, Jerry Campagna, Ben Favaloro, Jimmy Kong, and Don Garlick.

“I joined the Jimmy Fund Walk to help raise money and awareness for the great things that Dana-Farber does for folks with cancer,” said John Sloan, SMT Process Engineer for MC Assembly Boston. “It is hospitals with doctors, nurses, and staff like Dana-Farber that make a world of difference to folks living with cancer and their families and friends. I lost my dad to cancer. I’ve lost friends, parents of friends, aunts, and uncles all to this terrible disease. I too, am a cancer survivor. I walk with hope that someday hospitals like Dana-Farber will find a cure.”

Kristin Casale, Program Buyer for MC Assembly Boston, is also a strong supporter of the Jimmy Fund.

“I am just so amazed at what the Jimmy Fund organization does for this cause and I am honored to be a part of it,” she said. “I am walking in honor of my amazing mother who is a two-time breast cancer survivor. She continues to inspire me every day. I walk in hopes that someday, with everyone’s help, we can find a cure.”

Hansen said the response from his co-workers has been very special.

“We have had an awesome response from the team,” he said. “We have folks from the production floor, personnel from program management, and representatives from engineering, purchasing, and operations. Everyone has their own reason for walking. Some have lost friends or family; some are walking for survivors. All of us are walking so that hopefully one day there is a cure for all cancers.”

Team MC Assembly has set a goal of raising a minimum of $5,000, but they would like to exceed that target and believe that every little bit will help. To help them reach their goal, supporters can donate on the team’s webpage: www.jimmyfundwalk.org/2017/mcassembly.

MC Assembly, a leading electronic manufacturing service provider, has partnered with KT Technical Sales Inc. as a vertical market representative to expand the company’s sales presence in the Southwest region of the United States.

Under a recently finalized contract, KT Technical Sales will now offer MC Assembly services to Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) customers. This will in effect open the door as in introduction to MC Assembly capabilities which can support high volume electronic manufacturing service operations.

“It’s a pleasure to add KT Technical Sales Inc. with their vast experience and business relationships to our team,” said David Prunier, MC Assembly Vice President of Business Development. “We’re looking forward to mutual growth opportunities with Ken and his team.”

Prunier calls this partnership a “good fit” and said working with them should shorten the sales cycle times significantly. At the same time working with MC Assembly expands KT Technical Sales Inc.’s service offerings to include high volume services like system integration services and box build; opening the door for both companies to grow new business.

“We hope this new partnership will increase value to our customers by being able to provide additional resources they can use to build products with high quality low cost assembly solutions,” said Ken Thompson, President and CEO of KT Technical Sales, Inc. “MC Assembly has a pretty broad scope of strong capabilities. Between their three facilities, they can provide a wide range of capabilities to serve the needs of our customers.”

KT Technical Sales Inc. first worked with MC Assembly in 2009 in a supplier role. At the time, MC Assembly used some of their cables in box builds for medical screening machines. Since then the relationship between the two companies has grown.

“We’re looking forward to expanding our relationship with MC Assembly and helping them build a larger presence in the Southwest region,” Thompson said.

KT Technical Sales Inc.’s focus is to be “An Engineering Design & Manufacturing Solutions Provider”. The company has a very diversified customer base that is very strong with defense and military, but also includes medical, communication and industrial customers.

“Our company offers a variety of products and services and is focus on every aspect of the process from concept to design to full production,” Thompson said. “Our talent pool is made up of industry veterans, each boasting 20 plus years of experience with established long term relationships with customers and suppliers.”

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

About KT Technical Sales KT Technical Sales, Inc. (www.kttechsales.com) adds value to your efforts in a seamless manner. We employ a “WIT” (whatever it takes) approach, ensuring we meet, and ultimately exceed your expectations. We maintain a worldwide network of business partners that allow us to develop and foster relationships with both customers and suppliers. We handle the pressures of coordinating the design and movement of your products from NPI to Production worldwide. Our mission is to be an extension of your company’s procurement and engineering teams, providing you with quality low cost solutions. We offer a variety of products and services from design to production, allowing our customers to focus on what they do best. At KT Technical Sales, Inc. we’re ready and equipped to support your unique challenges.

Melbourne, FL.- MC Assembly, a leading electronic manufacturing services provider, is helping CareerSource Brevard (CSB) and the City of Palm Bay expand their “Juniors to Jobs” (J2J) high school work readiness program internship options. This year the program has opened up to seniors and recent graduates allowing for older students to participate in a wider range of internships that require a student to be 18 or older.

For the first time, MC Assembly is hosting five interns from the J2J program working in the departments of human resources, finance, engineering and production.

“This program allows the students to get “real-world” work experience,” said Brian Kingston, MC Assembly’s Human Resources Director. “We hope the interns decide to enter a career in manufacturing but if not, at least we are able show them what we do and the impact manufacturing has on the world today.”

“We are glad to see the City of Palm Bay open up the age limit this year so that MC Assembly could come on board as an official worksite,” said Jana Bauer, Program Planning Officer for CareerSource Brevard who runs the J2J program.

Founded in 2014, the J2J program provides paid internship opportunities and career guidance to local high school students looking to jump start their careers. Kingston has participated in the program from the beginning as an HR expert panelist passing along tips and best practices in resume writing, interview techniques and overall business acumen. This year Kingston interviewed and selected the MC Assembly intern picks.

“Communication during the interview process is very important,” Kingston said. “Each intern we selected communicated very well. They did not have typical “work experience” but were able to articulate what they have done in high school and how it would apply to the internship.”

Meet the Interns Sydney Smith is a senior at Palm Bay Magnet High School interning in MC Assembly’s human resources department. Her eventual career goal, to be an occupational therapist.

“I signed up for the J2J program because I have no work experience and I saw this as a way to get introduced into the work force,” Smith said. “Since it’s only a six-week program, I figured it would give me a nice experience and wouldn’t interfere with school.”

“When I looked MC Assembly up online, I saw that the company did charity events and I really liked that,” Smith said. “The people are very friendly. Whenever I have any questions they help me. Since I sometimes have difficulty with commuting, they’re very flexible with my schedule. That’s very helpful all the way around.”

Since starting her internship, Smith has worked in many areas of human resources learning filing, handling phone calls, working on the reception desk, creating power point presentations and assisting with open enrollment.

“My favorite part is working the reception desk because you get to interact with a lot of people,” Smith said. “So far it’s been a fun internship, I really look forward to coming here.”

Smith said the experience has really developed her “people skills” which will benefit her in the future.

“I found that working here has helped me become more outgoing,” Smith said. “So far, this experience has taught me proper business phone etiquette, how to type and use excel, and I feel those are skills that you need almost any place that you go.”

Duwaun Daley is a recent graduate of Heritage High School, focused on a career in mechanical or architectural engineering.

“I’m a math type of guy,” Daley said. “I took a couple of engineering courses and I grew an interest. I like to create, build, disassemble and reassemble things.”

Daley applied to the J2J program specifically interested in manufacturing and picked MC Assembly for work experience.

“I thought it was a good opportunity to learn about the manufacturing and engineering field and give me insight into what I want to do as a career,” Daily said. “I hope to gain practical technical experience and learn more about technology they work with.”

Since starting, Daley has learned how to test circuit boards, do time studies and has shadowed several workers. He’s enjoying the opportunity to learn the industry up close.

“I’m meeting new people and learning a lot about testing, assembly, soldering, and the whole overall process, he said. “What’s really interesting is how big the company is and how many people work on individual things and all the machines here that do specific things.”

The internship also lets students sample corporate workplace life as well.

“I like the culture of this company,” Daley said. “The people have been very friendly and easy going. I like how they treat me with respect as a young individual trying to learn about the company and manufacturing industry. I could see myself working here one day; I like the culture and environment.”

The J2J Program Each year, the J2J program accepts around 20-30 applicants. Participating high schools include Bayside High, Palm Bay High and Heritage High. Organizers report the program is growing in popularity and application rates have increased each year.

“Students today face challenges on trying to even get their foot in the door,” Bauer said. “This program is important because it gives them leverage against other entry-level jobseekers by providing a five-week, paid, hands-on internship that can be listed on their resume as true work experience.”

Several local businesses have participated in the program in industries ranging from information technology, manufacturing, healthcare facility (assisted living), engineering firms to law firms.

“This is an amazing experience for students, and more important than they realize in the beginning,” Bauer said. ‘Our organization has a very fluid relationship with employers and communicates with them about the needs of their organizations on a daily basis. Many employers want to hire candidates that bring experience to the table.”

The overall goal of the program is to help high school students by offering them practical guidance in job hunting and interview skills and exposing them to real life working conditions. The students receive Foundations Training and a five-week paid internship opportunity.

“It is also important because it allows the student to “try out” a field of interest,” Bauer said. “Five weeks is a good amount of time to become exposed to an organization, learn the culture and dynamics, learn the work and determine if it’s worth pursuing further or not.”

Foundations Training The students receive Foundations Training consisting of four intensive days focused on teaching the students the essential skills they need to become employable and remain a valued employee. Components include; interviewing and resume preparation, job searching (tools and process), financial stability (budgeting, credit, saving, etc.), proper dress, business etiquette, customer service (in person, on the phone, through email), co-workers and managing those relationships, types of managers, working as part of a team, the importance of communication, and managing conflict.

The Foundations Training also provides an opportunity for students to do mock job interviews. Students practice interview several times for various positions so they gain a bunch of interviewing experience.

J2J program organizers believe there are several benefits to having expert panelists like Brian Kingston share their advice and insights with the students. The panelists reinforce what CSB taught the students about expectations of themselves and the workplace and emphasize the key points students should learn from real-life employers.

“The panelists sharing their history provides the opportunity for discussion around the idea that not everyone ends up going their intended path right out of high school,” Bauer said. “There’s always a large emphasis on college and having a plan, and while those components are important, they aren’t for everyone. The students are encouraged to keep an open mind because they are still young and a door may open for them that they never expected. Every experience that you encounter can fit into a bigger picture if you have the right attitude.”

The interns agreed, saying their advice to students interested in going through the J2J program is to listen and really pay attention.

“I found training week very informative when they explain dress codes, interview skills and resume writing,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of information presented all at once, but it’s all super helpful.”

“I appreciated the training, especially the part about creating a resume,” Daley said. “It’s defiantly will help during my career search.”

The Internship Organizers believe that through the internship, students gain an understanding of the work environment including the culture, the people, the clients/customers, the day-to-day operations, the flaws as well as best practices. By being closely connected with real business operations and being treated with the respect of a regular employee, interns get to experience real work conditions in an educational framework.

“There is nothing more eye-opening than real, hands-on experience,” Bauer said. “We wish we could give every student this opportunity before they invest their time and money into furthering their education or career pathway.”

The program’s organizers believe that through the internship, students get to practice and develop customer service skills, learn the importance of showing up every day, on time, being a team player, and how the decisions they make about their commitment to this program can directly affect their team and the company’s success. The students are provided with an in-depth “trial” to determine if the work they are doing, the department’s responsibilities they carry, the company they’re working for, if these are all situations and environments they would like to work for/within the future.

Finally, if students put in the effort, they can gain professional references to use in the future. They expand their personal network based on coworkers they’ve met and bosses they have reported to. Most importantly, they have gained an insight as to a career option and have plenty of knowledge to empower themselves to make a decision regarding their future.

“The Foundations Training provides students with a “foundation” of job hunting skills they need to be successful,” Bauer said. “During their internship, they really “get” it. They start to understand why it’s important to show up every day, on time, be a team player and have a great attitude.”

CSB and the City of Palm Bay agree on the importance of investing in today’s students as they are the local workforce of the future.

“We strive very hard to prepare and encourage our youth to give 150% in the workplace so they don’t succumb to the stereotypes of their generation,” Bauer said.

Manufacturing for the Future Manufacturing is often publicly perceived through a time warped lens as it appeared decades ago. Kingston says what he likes most about the internship aspect of the program is the opportunity to show student interns what modern electronic manufacturing is and how they could make it a career.

“At orientation, the students could not stop asking questions about MC Assembly,” Kingston said. “Once we hit the production floor their eyes opened wide and you could tell they were very impressed with the facility, process and products we make. Several times throughout the tour the students described how “neat” the entire manufacturing process is and how “cool” it is assembling the printed circuit boards. The students had no idea this type of work existed and were very intrigued and wanted to learn more.”

After spending time on the floor and seeing the process up close, the interns indeed report gaining a deeper appreciation for manufacturing as an industry.

“Manufacturing is actually much more involved than I thought,” Smith said. “I just thought you throw stuff together on an assembly line, but it turns out there’s a lot more to the process to it than that.”

“My perspective really changed a lot because I thought manufacturing was just a few steps, but now I see there’s a whole complex process and a lot more steps to that and you need to be very precise,” Daley said. “It takes a while to get the job done right.”

Kingston believes opportunities like this also help manufacturing companies build a talent pipeline for the manufacturing workers of tomorrow.

“The manufacturing workforce is aging and unless we begin to train our next generation of employees our industry as a whole is going to suffer,” he said.

Approximately 118 people attended with 76 competing in the golf tournament. Evan himself made the annual ceremonial first tee shot. The official tournament winner was Team Fred Motsis, which finished at -13.

The real winners, however, were Boston-area children. The event raised nearly $6,000 for Boston Children’s Hospital and Evan’s fund for his costly medical treatments.

“It really warmed my heart to see all the love for my grandson,” said Gary Tarallo, New Business Development Manager for MC Assembly, who runs the tournament. “It was a wonderful day and I’m grateful for the strong turn-out and support of our sponsors. The Merrimack Valley Golf Club was phenomenal and their staff went out of their way for us.”

Strokes for Evan was originally organized by Tarallo in 2014 to raise funds for his six-year-old grandson, Evan, who suffers from Maple Syrup Urine Disease and needed a liver transplant at the time. A portion of the funds raised every year are donated to Boston Children’s Hospital to be used to help other children in need of medical care. This years’ donation brings the events total donations to more than $8,000 in four years. Last year the charity also helped Boston resident 10-year-old Eddie “Strong” Elkhourly, who is battling cancer. Organizers are trying to grow awareness and participation to be able to help more children in the future.

‘We had a great time supporting this cause,” said Thom Hansen, Director of Operations at MC Assembly Boston, who participated in the event. “None of us really understood the tough road that this young child had to deal with. His mother, Tanya, gave us the details of Evan’s journey. He’s a tough kid and seems to be doing much better today, in part because of the support through these tournaments and the excellent treatment he’s getting from Boston Children’s Hospital.”

In fact, Tanya Tarallo, Evan’s mother, has become very active in Boston Children’s Hospital fundraising efforts making more than 40 speeches at college campus fundraisers around New England, taken part in Mix 104.1’s Mix Cares for Kids Radiothon fundraiser for Boston Children’s Hospital and traveling, making appearances and speaking on behalf of the hospital; putting a face to the cause.

“This event is near and dear to my family’s heart,” Tanya Tarallo said. “Our Evan has been a patient at Boston Children’s Hospital since birth, spending the first months of his life more there than at home. The doctors and medical staff have given us more than we can ever repay. This day is our way of showing our appreciation and acknowledging we are forever indebted to them.”

Representatives from Boston Children’s Hospital received the donation at the event and promised the proceeds will be put to good use to help eradicate out-of-pocket expenses that Boston Children’s transplant patient families face as they care for their sick child.

“To see an entire community come together to support Tanya, Evan and Boston Children’s Hospital each year at Strokes for Evan is very inspirational,” said Jess Brandi, special events coordinator at Boston Children’s Hospital Trust. “Tanya is a true advocate for the hospital, and we’re so grateful for all she does.”

The Tarallo family says they are very grateful for all of the support the event has received from sponsors, volunteers, the golf course and of course the golfers over the last four years.

“This day wouldn’t be possible without our sponsors,” Tanya Tarallo said. “Our family thanks everyone for their generosity.”

MC Assembly’s Human Resources (HR) Director Brian Kingston recently spoke as a panelist for CareerSource Brevard’s Juniors to Jobs program. This initiative helps provide internship opportunities and career advice for local high school students and recent high school graduates looking to start their careers. For the first time, MC Assembly will host five interns from the Juniors to Jobs program working this summer in the departments of HR, Finance, Engineering and Production.

Kingston has participated in the program as an HR expert panelist for the last three years during the Foundations Training week. On the panel, Kingston passed along tips and best practices in resume writing, interview techniques and overall business acumen.

“This program allows the students to get “real-world” work experience. It gives each student a chance to find out what they like and what they don’t,” Kingston said. “We hope the students decide to enter a career in manufacturing but if not, at least we are able to help them with that decision now rather than wait.”

Kingston believes opportunities like this also help manufacturing companies build a talent pipeline for the manufacturing workers of tomorrow.

“Our manufacturing workforce is aging and unless we begin to train our next generation of employees our industry is going to suffer,” he said.

Manufacturing is often publicly perceived through a time warped lens as it appeared decades ago. Kingston says what he likes most about the internship aspect of the program is the opportunity to show student interns what modern electronic manufacturing is and how they could make it a career.

“The students leave here and tell their friends all the great things that we do at MC Assembly and for the students, their families and friends to realize that manufacturing is not what it was and how it is only getting better,” Kingston said.

Kingston interviewed and selected the students who will be interns and says the students MC Assembly selected are very excited to begin.

“At orientation, the students could not stop asking questions about MC Assembly,” Kingston said. “Once we hit the production floor their eyes opened wide and you could tell they were very impressed with the facility, process and products we make. Several times throughout the tour the students described how “neat” the entire PCBA manufacturing process is and how “cool” it is assembling the printed circuit boards. The students had no idea this type of work existed and were very intrigued and wanted to learn more.”

Kingston also shared some valuable insights as to the selection process and what characteristics and qualities stood out about the MC Assembly intern picks.

“Communication during the interview process is very important,” Kingston said. “Each intern we selected communicated very well. They did not have typical “work experience” but were able to articulate what they have done in high school and how it would apply for the internships.”

Kingston also shared his secret formula for assessing intern candidates.

“I have three things I look for during an interview. 1) What does the candidate know about MC Assembly? – I ask this because I want to make sure the candidate is interested in MC Assembly, understands our mission and values. 2) How you answer your questions? I do not want yes or no answers. I look for candidates that can answer questions well with confidence and examples. 3) I always wrap up the interview and ask the candidate if they have any questions for me. They should, if they do not it tells me that this opportunity may not be important to them. Everyone should have a question related to a job you are applying for.”

MC Assembly, a leading mid-tier electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider, has hired veteran EMS professional David Prunier as Vice President of New Business Development.

Prunier is based at the company’s Boston facility and is responsible for growing and managing new business development for customers located in the Northeast Region, the second largest market in the country.

MC Assembly CEO George Moore said Prunier is a seasoned veteran in the EMS industry with a strong background serving the kind of customers the company wants to work with moving forward.

“He’s an experienced guy with a great background and we expect him to drive relationships with customers that will bring us new business and lead us in best practices as it relates to sales and marketing,” Moore said. “He’s been on both sides, doing operational jobs, running EMS sites and has done business development for large and mid-tier manufacturing companies. He’s a calm, cool and collected veteran in a lot of different areas and that experience matters.”

Prunier brings more than 37 years of experience in high end manufacturing operations and sales including industrial, medical, defense and commercial markets. He’s held positions with several manufacturing companies including serving as president of Applied Technical Services Corporation (ATS), general manager at Plexus, vice president of operations for Three-Five Systems, Inc. (TFS) EMS division, vice president of North American & Asian business development and director of operations for CTS Electronics Manufacturing Solutions, vice president of operations for Proto Pac Engineering and business development Executive for Benchmark Electronics.

Having maintained an equal balance of operations and business development roles throughout his career, Prunier said his operational experience is a strong asset in his ability to relate to potential customers.

“When I go out on a sales call, I can speak from an understanding that many sales people don’t have,” Prunier said. “I worked up from the line, doing everything from inspecting and soldering and printed circuit board assembly and running equipment, so I really understand the processes.”

By experiencing the industry from so many different perspectives, Prunier said new business development is a vital task to keeping EMS companies functioning through both the good times and the tough times.

“You have the ability to affect a lot of lives and a lot of peoples’ livelihoods by bringing on new business and new relationships and seeing that growth,” Prunier said. “A lot of people can benefit from that kind of prosperity and it’s enjoyable; it’s fun to see that effect.”

Prunier holds an Associates’ Degree in Computer Science from Hesser College and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management from Franklin Pierce University. Born on the Cape, he’s a New England native. Prunier grew up in Massachusetts and moved to New Hampshire at age 18, then spent a decade on the West Coast, before returning to New England.

Prunier has three children and two grandchildren with one more on the way. His hobbies include photography, art (pen and ink and oil painting) and writing.

“Everyone had a great time, there was great showmanship, motivation and everyone worked as a team, no one left behind,” said Carmen Miranda, a Program Administrator at MC Assembly, who was part of the winning team.

Previous to this, the Wellness Team participated in a 5k charity race “Run for the Shade”, which helped raise funds for a local school. MC Assembly’s Wellness Team promotes health and wellness as part of the company’s culture by choosing a fitness event for the company to participate in each quarter. In addition to participating in fitness events, the wellness team coordinates annual wellness checks, quarterly blood drives and annual flu shots.

“The wellness team was created to make fitness initiatives fun and bring our team together outside of the plant,” said Brian Kingston, MC Assembly’s Human Resources Director. “Events like these allow for us to strengthen our company culture and internal relationships.”

Approximately 170 golfers, contributors and volunteers turned out to participate in this year’s tournament, which benefitted Kids Without Christmas, a local non-profit organization composed of volunteers who purchase, wrap and distribute gifts to hundreds of children in the Palm Bay/Melbourne area each holiday season.

While everyone competed to win, the real winners were the children of Brevard County, according to MC Assembly CEO George Moore.

“It’s always great to see the wonderful outpouring of support from all the participants who turn out each year to make a difference for our local youth,” Moore said. “And that’s what it’s really about – helping people in in need. In this case, we’re able to assist Kids Without Christmas in brightening the holiday season for some of Brevard County’s underprivileged children.”

Mike Kelly, founder of Kids Without Christmas, said the support MC Assembly has provided over the years has given his organization the opportunity to expand its reach with local families.

“They’ve been our No. 1 contributor and the difference they’ve helped us make has been tremendous,” Kelly said. “They’ve afforded us the opportunity to give some of Brevard County’s most deserving kids a reason to look forward to the holiday season.

The annual golf tourney is just one of many charitable initiatives the company takes on each year, Moore said.

“In the end, it’s about helping those who need the help the most,” he said. “In our own small way, we’re working to create a better community and a brighter future for Brevard County.”

MC Assembly, a leading electronics manufacturing service provider, recently completed “Incito Man” Lean Enterprise Simulation Workshops at the company’s Boston facility. This latest round of lean manufacturing training means that now staff in all three of its facilities (Boston, Florida and Mexico) have undergone “Incito Man” Lean training.

Lean manufacturing is a waste elimination philosophy intended to create more value for customers by optimizing the flow of products through the entire value stream.  Companies using the Lean philosophy can respond faster to customer requirements and can provide products with higher quality and lower cost.

“Our goal was to get everyone thinking the same when it comes to continuous improvements and Lean initiatives,” said Thom Hansen, Director of Operations at MC Assembly’s Boston facility. “By doing this training at all three MC Assembly facilities, it re-aligns everybody so we’re addressing issues in the same manner.”

The staff reported a very positive and engaging experience. Incito is Latin for “insight, inspire and rapid change.” Incito’s consultants teach LEAN methodologies through a hands-on simulation.

“Our people picked it up quickly and really enjoyed it,” said John Burdett, Production Supervisor of MC Assembly’s Boston facility. “By doing the exercises, they found out that through teamwork, planning and proper execution they could accomplish their goal and they were all very proud at the end when they actually completed the task.”

Test Engineering Manager Ben Favaloro also took part in the training and says the employees learned a great deal from the lessons and Lean concepts taught.

“The way the process evolved over the day really stuck with the employees as a memorable learning experience,” Favaloro said. “The hands-on aspect kept everyone engaged throughout. Overall, it was a very positive experience.”

The workshop focused on improving group problem solving skills, team work and efficiency. Instead of just talking about the ideas, the employees acted them out in a simulation where they worked together using Lean principles to produce a product and meet a goal on deadline.

“Incito Man is a great way to get everyone on the same page,” said Tom Reed from the Incito Consulting Group. “Training provides lean manufacturing tools to enable employees to understand concepts before using a simulation to apply the lessons to real life situations.”

One of the unique training aspects employees appreciated most was a role-playing exercise that helped them gain a greater appreciation and a new understanding of all the roles in the manufacturing process.

“It’s a very valuable thing to know and see how we all work together because we don’t always get to see that on a day-to-day basis,” Favaloro said. “In this training, we got to learn and consider all sides of the spectrum.”

Said Burnett: “What I came away with most was the experience of watching our people come together and act as a team. It really hits home when you’re a supervisor and you see everybody suddenly working as one unit.”

There is already a noticeable difference in employee participation and behavioral changes including a renewed enthusiastic focus on continuous improvement throughout the staff.

“Two things have really popped up because of this training,” Hansen said. “First, we’re seeing more employee engagement. There’s much more of the workforce bringing up ideas as we walk the floor or have our presentations. Second, during our training sessions, the folks who have gone through the training really understand what you’re talking about and see what you’re trying to achieve when you’re bringing out new initiatives.”

Favaloro agreed, pointing to an employee suggestion that helped cut board production by five minutes.

“Those kinds of things are very helpful when we try to cut down costs and work more efficiently,” he said.

Brian Kingston, MC Assembly’s Human Resources Director, is determined to be part of the solution to a major problem the manufacturing industry is facing right now; the shortage of candidates with relevant skills to fill open manufacturing job vacancies.

“There’s a serious skill gap; in some places, companies can’t even find solderers to hire,” Kingston said. “About twenty years ago when the dot com boom happened, many high schools stopped teaching manufacturing related skills. There was no more wood shop, no more automotive, no more welding classes. Students were convinced that they needed to go to college for advanced degrees and manufacturing was no longer seen as an option.”

Kingston is a volunteer board member serving on the Advancing in Manufacturing (AIM) committee in Brevard County, Florida. For the past sixteen months, CareerSource Brevard (CSB), a regional workforce board, has been working with the manufacturing community through the AIM committee, to create an industry led sector strategy to identify skills gaps and build a talent pipeline to meet the current and future needs of the rapid expansion of manufacturing in Brevard County. The effort was made possible through a two-year Sector Strategy U.S. Department of Labor (U.S. DOL) National Emergency Grant for $765,000 from CareerSource Florida and the Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO), branded as AIM.

The AIM grant is a funding source to pay for building a sector strategy, provide skills training to unemployed workers and on the job training dollars to manufactures who hire eligible qualified candidates to offset the cost on onboarding new employees.

The funding for the AIM Grant was part of a 2015 U.S. DOL $150 million-dollar nationwide Sector Partnerships National Emergency Grant program to help states develop innovative employment and training services that focus on enhanced regional and industry-specific collaborations. $7 million-dollars from this program was awarded awarded to CareerSource Florida and the DEO to assess the needs of employers in advanced manufacturing. Twelve other counties in Florida also received this grant (in various amounts).

“The federal government is providing these grant training dollars because we are in a national crisis to find skilled workers to meet new advanced manufacturing labor needs,” said Tina Berger, Sector Strategy Program Manager for CSB and administrator of AIM “Twenty-five years ago, a high school graduate could follow an Industrial Arts career path which included blue print reading, welding and drafting classes and found good jobs in industry. As we offshored our manufacturing jobs, many high schools dismantled industrial vocational training. The staggering effect of off shoring those jobs is a 25 year skills gap in the US. The good news is that the jobs are coming back and we are now re-building career pathways.”

U.S. DOL statistics confirm there were about 324,000 manufacturing job vacancies in November 2016. The manufacturing skills gap in the Brevard area was further confirmed by a study commissioned by CareerSource Florida and FloridaMakes to understand the needs of manufacturers in the area. An industry survey conducted by the Economic Development Council of the Space Coast confirmed the regional needs with 90 percent of respondents believing their company’s workforce will expand in the next 2 years.

“There are over 574 manufacturers in this region, including many electronics manufacturing services contract manufacturers such as MC Assembly in Melbourne,” Berger said. “We have a high concentration of manufacturing companies that support the Space Center projects and numerous aerospace and defense contractors as industry drivers in the region. Sector strategy grants require that we identify skills gaps in training and education based on industry input. We must also look at the future needs of new companies moving into the county such as One Web that will build communication satellites, Blue Origin which will build orbital rockets and we are proud that Orion, the Mars space vessel, will be manufactured in Brevard County.”

Berger says these efforts help the Brevard community by providing career training services and resources to move local residents seeking employment into well-paying careers with a promising future in advanced manufacturing, while at the same time supporting the growth of manufacturing talent for the future, which will be in high demand.

Progress of AIM Meetings

In October 2015, AIM held its first meeting in partnership with Eastern Florida State College’s (EFSC) Manufacturing Advisory Council. Employers identified four specific skill sets that needed immediate attention- machinist, solderers, quality inspectors and welders.

Since then, CSB has been holding quarterly AIM meetings, with representatives from over 60 organizations in the community attending, including manufacturing businesses, economic development organizations and education institutions, to find solutions to the skills gap that is being seen in the local manufacturing industry. Industry volunteers actively participate in meetings dedicated to growing a talent pipeline, upgrade current employee skills, and improve education curriculums to address the workforce challenges in Brevard County.

“We’re taking a holistic approach to solving the problem,” Berger said. “You have to make sure that as people go through training, they come out with skills that are relevant to the manufacturer needs. The most dramatic example is a welding program which included 270 hours of pipe welding training, but there is little pipe welding in demand in this county. Industry involvement made all the difference in turning things around.”

Other proposed solutions AIM has considered include practical revisions in training, a heavy focus on education and skills development initiatives for high school and college students including internships, investing in on the job training programs, developing effective skills assessment tools, updating the image of manufacturing industry, creating education mapping and training, creating streamlined certification programs designed to facilitate the placement of qualified employees in critical job vacancies, and continually working with industry to identify skill gaps and industry needs by regional employers.

“The manufacturers and educators are in sync and cooperating and we’re having enormous success,” Berger said. “Thank goodness we have companies like MC Assembly who are enlightened, see the big picture and are willing to participate.”

AIM Results

Training Opportunities

One of the grant’s goals is to provide qualified unemployed career seekers with relevant training to ultimately provide employers with skilled labor. Since starting, AIM has served around 100 career seeker participants through Individual training classes, employed worker training and On the Job training funds to employers.

“MC Assembly is in the process of interviewing several soldering candidates who recently completed their J-STD and IPC-A-610 certification,” Kingston said. “We hope to hire several.”

EFSC Machining Shop

For nearly a decade, EFSC had a Machining Shop sitting idle. With the help of AIM’s advocacy, the college recently received $530,000 to refurbish and equip their new Manufacturing Training Center. EFSC also added new manufacturing themed programs with updated labs. AIM’s Manufacturing Occupation Subcommittee helped EFSC re-write curriculum changes in welding, machining and quality management inspection courses. EFSC accepted recommendations and is in the process of implementing them.

“EFSC responded quickly to the manufacturer’s critical skill challenges by offering training to meet immediate job opening needs,” Berger said.

Bayside High School Manufacturing Academy

With the help of AIM advocating on their behalf, Brevard Public Schools received a legislative award of $500,000 to open the Manufacturing Academy at Bayside High School and an Aerospace Academy at Eau Gallie. The funding provided money for equipment, training materials and a dedicated teacher with manufacturing experience.

AIM Champions helped design the lab space layout, determine what equipment was needed and advised on the curriculum program. Currently 85 students are enrolled in the Bayside High School Manufacturing Academy. The Academy offers online simulation CNC Machinist training and will soon offer a soldering/electronics program so the students can exit the program with experience and industry credentials which will be accepted for credit towards a degree at EFSC should the student want to continue their education. AIM also encourages employers to connect education with real world work environment.

Bayside High School teacher Ms. Mary McCormick and Dennis Sobolewski, from the Office of Career and Technical Education, recently toured MC Assembly to better understand employer’s need. As a result, the Academy will soon be offering soldering classes.

Kingston says MC Assembly highly values tour opportunities as ways to teach more people about modern electronics manufacturing work floor.

“When a teacher is able to visit a production facility they are able to learn what tools you use, what your work stations look like, what the facility in general looks like and so much more,” Kingston said. “A teacher can then directly convey this image and message to the students.”

Internship Programs

Changing the perceptions of manufacturing is a critical component to the sector strategy success. AIM’s Summer Youth Internship program is designed to expose high school students to career opportunities in manufacturing through direct engagement with companies.

Kingston says MC Assembly is excited to take part in AIM’s summer internship program this June and will host 2 high school student interns through the program for six weeks.

“We plan to greatly expand the program this year,” Berger said. “Manufacturing suffers from a perception problem due to offshoring jobs for 25 years. Most people perceive manufacturing as it was in the 70’s. Influencers are telling youth that it is dark, dirty and dangerous work with no job stability because of what happened to them with off shoring and increasing automation. We need to change that perception and get youth engaged.”

Automation and modern technology have modernized manufacturing facilities so they no longer resemble the outdated images most people remember. Most modern manufacturing facilities are well lit, safe and clean. The challenge is in showing younger workers that manufacturing can be a rewarding career path.

“The future is in preparing our youth for careers in robotics, nanotechnology, computerized machinery and technologies that are just emerging in the industry” Berger said. “Today’s manufactures are working more intelligently and efficiently and the jobs now are more about programming, quality assurance and lean manufacturing principles.”

Next Steps

The National Emergency Grant runs through June 30, 2017. CareerSource has applied for an extension to this grant for an additional year so they can continue work on apprenticeship programs and more occupation training challenges.

“It is very rewarding to have a small part in revitalizing the manufacturing industry that is the backbone to a strong US economy,” Berger said.

“I am very encouraged and excited with the progress AIM has made since we started,” Kingston said. “This program has given individuals the opportunity for training, certification, internships and employment opportunities in manufacturing. We have also made a direct impact with teaching manufacturing skills in our local schools again. We have helped bridge a gap with the students and manufacturing. Ultimately this will help manufacturing companies find and retain talent into the future.”

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (http://www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with operations in Billerica, Mass. and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, full box-build and direct order fulfillment.

About CareerSource Brevard CareerSource Brevard administers The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and Welfare Transition programs in Brevard County as well as grants and other employment support activities. CareerSource Brevard, formerly Brevard Workforce, is a non-profit, regional public/private partnership under CareerSource Florida. Workforce Boards create local workforce development systems through one-stop career centers which combine multiple federal, state, and local program funds, providing comprehensive services, labor market information and access to resources for businesses and career seekers. Visit www.careersourcebrevard.com or call (321) 504-7600 for more information about our services and resources. For more information on how you can get involved and have your company’s voice heard contact Tina Berger, Sector Strategy Program Manager 321-394-0515 or tberger@caereersourcebrevard.com.

The Florida-based manufacturer has introduced several initiatives to help lead the way for the manufacturing industry to be better stewards of the environment. These initiatives include local volunteering, the introduction of a water recycling system at its Melbourne plant, recycling initiatives companywide, reduced power consumption and on-site nitrogen generation.

The company’s employees are participating in local cleanups while also adopting green technologies in MC Assembly’s North American facilities in Melbourne, Boston and Zacatecas, Mexico,.

“We believe in being a positive part of our community and making thoughtful, environmentally friendly contributions to the places we work and live in,” said MC Assembly Chief Operating Officer Luis Ramirez. “Our environmental initiatives are aimed at reducing any negative impact to our environment while shrinking our carbon footprint.”

Reducing Power Consumption with LEDs and Solar Panels

In addition to installing smart light switches in all office areas, MC Assembly’s Boston facility installed high efficiency LED lighting in its shop floor saving approximately $1,200 per month in lighting costs. MC Assembly’s Melbourne headquarters is in the process of purchasing and installing new LED lighting fixtures to replace about 880 current bulbs.

The new LEDs are plug replaceable with fluorescent representing a significant reduction in power usage of approximately 41,200 kilowatt hours per year. Company officials estimate they will save about $4,120 per year in electric costs. There are also plans to install LED lighting in its Mexico facility as well.

MC Assembly is also planning to install a 60 solar panel, 16,500-watt PV system at its Melbourne headquarters, projected to reduce power usage by 30,000 Kilowatt hours per year and saving approximately $3,000 in electrical costs annually. This system is expected to supply all the energy needs for cafeteria services at the plant.

Local Beach Clean Up MC Assembly’s “My Community” team recently partnered with Keep Brevard Beautiful for a beach clean-up event. A total of 35 MC Assembly employees and their families volunteered at Pelican Beach for a morning clean-up project.

“Our team really wanted to participant in an event that would help our environment,” said Brian Kingston, MC Assembly Human Resources Director. “Not only was this a great benefit for our local environment but it was great to see the teamwork, comradery and passion the MC employees embraced for our community events.”

Green Initiatives From the installation of a closed loop water recycling processing system in Florida to recycling all plastics and metals used in the manufacturing shop in Boston, MC Assembly is always looking for ways to become a better steward of the Earth and to preserve natural resources.

“We consider the environment to be as important of a stakeholder as anyone or anything else,” Ramirez said. “We not only want to meet our local, state and federal environmental regulations but we want to strive to exceed those regulations by creating initiatives, many of those driven by our own employees’ ideas, to leave our children and future generations a better environment.”

Robust Recycling Programs All three MC Assembly facilities recycle plastics, cardboard and metals to reduce landfill waste. Last year alone, MC Assembly recycled more than 25 tons of manufacturing material. The company has also invested in equipment to recycle solder dross, reducing the solder waste by 70 percent.

Reducing Annual Water Consumption by 74 Percent Last year, MC Assembly installed a Closed Loop Process Water Recycling System in its Melbourne headquarters, reducing annual water consumption by more than 74 percent. The water savings totals more than 3 million gallons annually, reducing waste while reallocating water usage into a more efficient and eco-friendly system. Both the Boston and Mexico facilities also use similar closed loop water systems for the PCBA cleaning process.

On Site Nitrogen Generator

In electronics manufacturing, nitrogen plays an important role. Nitrogen is used to reduce the oxidation and dross build up in the Ersa and Wave soldering machines and can be used in the SMT machines. In its previous Florida facility, MC Assembly needed to truck in nitrogen every month. When it moved into its new Melbourne facility, instead of moving the nitrogen silo, MC Assembly installed an on-site nitrogen generator.

“It’s more efficient because we’re not bringing in trucks on a monthly basis and running additional piping all through the building since the generator is relatively small and local to the machines in the area it’s being used,” said MC Assembly’s Continuous Improvement Manager Dan Prina.

Approximately 170 golfers, contributors and volunteers turned out to participate in this year’s tournament, which benefitted Kids Without Christmas, a local non-profit organization composed of volunteers who purchase, wrap and distribute gifts to hundreds of children in the Palm Bay/Melbourne area each holiday season.

While everyone competed to win, the real winners were the children of Brevard County, according to MC Assembly CEO George Moore.

“It’s always great to see the wonderful outpouring of support from all the participants who turn out each year to make a difference for our local youth,” Moore said. “And that’s what it’s really about – helping people in in need. In this case, we’re able to assist Kids Without Christmas in brightening the holiday season for some of Brevard County’s underprivileged children.”

Mike Kelly, founder of Kids Without Christmas, said the support MC Assembly has provided over the years has given his organization the opportunity to expand its reach with local families.

“They’ve been our No. 1 contributor and the difference they’ve helped us make has been tremendous,” Kelly said. “They’ve afforded us the opportunity to give some of Brevard County’s most deserving kids a reason to look forward to the holiday season.

The annual golf tourney is just one of many charitable initiatives the company takes on each year, Moore said.

“In the end, it’s about helping those who need the help the most,” he said. “In our own small way, we’re working to create a better community and a brighter future for Brevard County.”

Kelly will be responsible for providing leadership in expanding MC Assembly’s network of partners and improving supply chain tools to increase value to customers. Constant evolving markets make it critical to have a strong supply chain solution for MC Assembly’s customers, according to MC Assembly Chief Operating Officer Luis Ramirez.

“As MC Assembly continues to grow its customer base and penetrate new markets, our success depends on having tools and processes in place to provide value to our partners, starting with a robust supply chain,” Ramirez said. “Richard’s years of successful global experience and leadership in our industry will play a critical role in delivering customer focused innovations and value added activities.”

Kelly brings enhanced experience in quantitative modeling from a supply chain perspective, experience working collaboratively with customers to create complex supply chain solutions, and an extensive background in sourcing leadership.

He is an accomplished supply professional with more than 37 years of total experience in strategic leadership within leading tier 1, multi-billion-dollar technology manufacturing companies including Plexus Corporation, Foxconn and Jabil. Prior to entering the EMS industry, Kelly spent 14 years working in the defense and aerospace industry.

“After working with the larger tier 1 EMS companies, I was intrigued by the opportunity to collaborate closer with customers,” Kelly said. “Typically, the larger tier EMS players use a “one size fits all” template and the ability to customize solutions in the high-mix, low-volume sector of our business is something unique for the mid-tier EMS players.”

Kelly holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from Columbus State University and is certified by the American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS). A native Floridian, born in Tallahassee, Kelly is a father of two and grandfather of three grandsons. An avid baseball fan, Kelly is active in youth baseball, serving as scorekeeper and part-time pitching coach for his oldest grandson’s travel team.

Designed and manufactured by Trusted Technologies and Solutions (TTnS), the automated conformal coating system consists of three separate machines – an automated sprayer, magazine loaded cure oven and a stand-alone oven for bake-cure. MC Assembly Chief Operating Officer Luis Ramirez says the new automated system will save time and improve efficiency.

“Our customers’ applications demand high PCBA reliability in tough environments and with this new solution we will provide the level of consistency and repeatability for those applications,” Ramirez said.

Conformal coating is a process of covering electronic assemblies with customer-dictated material to protect the circuit board from damage.

“Just like covering wood floors with urethane varnish to protect the floor from scratches, conformal coating adds acrylic- or urethane-based material to protect the electronics from the environments that they’ll be subjected to,” said Andrew Nunenkamp, Manager of Manufacturing Engineering at MC Assembly.

Conformal coating is must-have requirement for many MC Assembly customers to protect electronic circuits from the effects of vibration, moisture, temperature and dirt. It has become a necessary process in supplying MC Assembly customers with total manufacturing solutions.

“The process is used a lot in airplanes because of changing temperatures and the need to mitigate condensation buildup from impacting the functionality of the board,” Nunenkamp said. “The aerospace and defense industries have the most requirements calling for conformal coating, but many other industrial customers need it as well.”

According to Nunenkamp, the biggest advantage to conformal coating is the standardization of the process.

“The machine is able to execute better than a hand-spray application,” Nunenkamp said. “It has a select coat film application spray nozzle ability to reduce the need for manual masking, saving time and minimizing the amount of masking necessary, which improves consistency and repeatability.”

This investment in SMT inline 3D AOI capability is the first step in incorporating 3D inspection capabilities as part of MC Assembly’s standard service offerings. Previously MC Assembly offered 3D AOI inspection off-line and as an optional service. This new change of incorporating the 3D AOI inline demonstrates MC Assembly’s continues commitment to optimizing quality control and inspection capabilities. MC Assembly plans to upgrade the inspection to 3D AOI machines on all SMT lines in the near future.

“By partnering with top market leaders like YESTECH, MC Assembly is making major improvements in early detection and process control capabilities,” said MC Assembly’s Chief Operations Officer Luis Ramirez. “This additional capability will allow us to provide our customers with complex PCBAs with an additional layer of inspection superior to the industry 2D standard AOI.”

Nordson YESTECH is a leading supplier of automated optical and conformal coat inspection systems for the electronics manufacturing industry. MC Assembly currently uses over 22 YESTECH AOI systems and one X-3 X-ray machine.

With the new FX-940 AOI machine, MC Assembly can provide its customers with cutting-edge 3D technology for the inspection of solder defects, lead defects/lifted leads, component presence and co-planarity of chips, BGAs and other height sensitive devices.

The new machine features Advanced Fusion Lighting and comprehensive inspection tools including angled cameras, full-color digital image processing and both image and rule-based algorithms. The FX-940 ULTRA offers complete inspection coverage with unsurpassed 2D and 3D defect detection. The FX-940 ULTRA provides high-powered inspection with:

• 12 MP / 5 axis 3D NYTVISION Technology
• Complete 2D + 3D inspection capabilities
• One top-down and four side-viewing cameras
• Automatic programming tools: < 30 minutes
• High defect coverage / low false failures
• SPC data collection and reporting

Pika Energy selected MC Assembly in 2016, seeking a New England-based manufacturing partner to meet the company’s increasing production needs.

“We looked to MC Assembly when we sought to scale up our manufacturing to meet increasing product demand,” said Chip Means, Pika Energy’s Director of Sales Development. Means said MC Assembly’s location just two hours from Pika Energy’s headquarters was a strong quality in the relationship from early on. “We mutually identified the advantage of working closely, geographically, as partners,” he said.

“We have built a strong relationship,” said Gary Tarallo, Director of New Business Development for MC Assembly’s Boston Facility. “It’s truly a partnership, as we both look at how we support each other as a win-win.”

Pika Energy develops clean power electronics solutions for residential and commercial sectors. Its patented technology takes an input from clean energy sources and distributes power that can be stored in a battery, used in a building or sold back to the grid.

According to Tarallo, Pika Energy is on the leading edge of an industry that MC Assembly sees as the future for consumers. “Clean energy is a fast-growing market and Pika Energy has an innovative product line. We’re happy to be working with them,” Tarallo said.

MC Assembly started ramping up to volume production in October at its Boston facility. “There was a lot of collaborative work between both our engineering groups getting it set up and going,” said Thom Hansen, Director of Operations at MC Assembly’s Boston facility. “We worked collectively on engineering changes as they came about and made sure we were both on the same page.”

Hansen said Pika Energy’s products need to comply with specific utility grid standards. To ensure reliability, MC Assembly used its standard robust inspection and testing process. “The best things we can do to ensure reliability is to provide layers of verification,” he said.

“Working with MC Assembly has been a very open, very active process,” Means said. “They’ve worked with our team to really understand our upcoming pipeline needs. It’s been an exciting last six months and MC Assembly has been a big part of that,” Means said.

“This time around our “My Community” team really wanted to participate in an event that would help our environment,” said Brian Kingston, MC Assembly Human Resources Director. “We were able to fill several garbage bags and remove a lot of trash from our local beach.”

Keep Brevard Beautiful, Inc. (KBB) and its network of volunteers strive to maintain and improve the environment of Brevard County, through litter control, education, recycling and beautification programs

MC Assembly’s “My Community” volunteer program each quarter selects a local charity or volunteer neighborhood event to participate in. Past events have included Habitat for Humanity, a school charity 5K race and a school backpack drive. Kingston says participating in these events is a win-win for everyone.

“Not only was this a great benefit for our local environment but it is great to see the teamwork, camaraderie and passion the MC Employees embrace for our community events,” he said.

Kids Without Christmas is a non-profit organization composed of volunteers who purchase, wrap, and distribute gifts to hundreds of children in the Palm Bay/Melbourne area who otherwise would go without. Since 2009, MC Assembly has raised over $200,000 for the charity through this annual golf event. MC Assembly estimates that between golfers and volunteers, about 170 people participate annually and about 80 percent of the players return every year.”

“It’s a terrific charity and one that focuses on the many who need assistance right here in Brevard County,” said MC Assembly CEO George Moore. “It’s an honor to partner with them again this year.

Mike Kelly, founder of Kids Without Christmas, said the support MC Assembly has provided over the years has given his organization the opportunity to expand its reach with local families.

“They’ve [MC Assembly] been our No. 1 contributor,” Kelly said. “They’ve been the best. For the past nine years, they’ve afforded us the opportunity to buy for more of Brevard County’s deserving kids.”

The entry fee is $500 for up to two players, $250 for each additional player. The entry fee includes golf, practice balls, and lunch. Participation is limited, and entries are on a first-come, first-served basis. Entry forms must be returned by February 20, 2017. For more information, please contact Casey Maisto at cmaisto@mcati.com.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly, based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations\in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, incircuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

The MC Assembly internship program invites college seniors studying design, engineering and manufacturing to take a closer look at MC Assembly’s manufacturing processes, allowing them to study and present their recommendations for efficiency and productivity improvements.

“We’ve been here a long time, we’re not going to be here forever, so it’s very important that there’s another generation of people who are familiar with manufacturing…with the academics of it and the technology of it but also the real-life experience of it if we’re going to remain strong as a manufacturing economy,” said MC Assembly CEO George Moore.

The latest interns to complete the program were from the University of Central Florida. For three months, they worked in the facility, studying a new product line. For their final project, they presented their findings and recommendations for improvements on that product line to the MC Assembly senior staff including Moore, who gave honest and constructive feedback to the intern team.

“We were able to receive actual criticism from a CEO,” said intern Jean Joseph. “He told us what he liked and didn’t like from our presentation and that’s something that you just can’t fabricate.”

“Talking to someone whose been in the field longer then you is always something great that you can take back and help to improve,” said intern Dusean Guerrier.

The interns said what they appreciated most was the hands-on experience they gained from studying and applying their classroom knowledge in a professional manufacturing facility.

“It was a great benefit to get to work on the manufacturing line and see how they make something from the planning department to actually building the actual project,” said intern Natalie Hensley.

“It was great seeing how we could apply the knowledge from our lectures into a real-life application,” said intern Manuel Molina.

The MC Assembly staff says the program is a win/win for both parties. The company gets fresh outside eyes to examine how they’re doing things and that sometimes leads to drive efficiency and improvement. At the same time, it gives the students a real-world experience to be able to practice what they’ve learned in the classroom.

“Every time I’ve sat through one of these we’ve learned an awful lot,” Moore said. “The excitement and engagement level of the students has always been high and we want to do more of it.”

Several students from the Florida Institute of Technology chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) recently took a tour of MC Assembly’s Melbourne, Florida, plant. The three-hour tour included a question-and-answer session and was led by Dan Prina, MC Assembly’s Project Manager of Lean Enterprise and Continuous Improvement. The primary goal was to give the students exposure to a real-world manufacturing facility.

“It was exciting to see the machines and the systematic process they have set up,” said Mario Acosta, a sophomore mechanical engineering major. “It was really impressive how exact and precise the machines are and how they were able to place such small components on the boards so quickly.”

The tour was organized by MC Assembly’s Michael Watts, who served as a chairman of the very same ASME Florida Tech Chapter in 1994-1995 when he was a mechanical engineering student.

Watts said these opportunities can make a difference in a student’s career decisions. Some of the students were focused on design engineering, but were curious to see the manufacturing side and learn how the design side connects with the manufacturing side.

“With mechanical engineers, many go into design work, but some go into manufacturing in one way or another,” Watts said. “That’s what happened with me when I was their age. After interning at Rockwell Collins, my passion turned from design to manufacturing, and I switched to industrial engineering. This was like being on the other side of the fence.”

“Many of these students haven’t had internships yet,” Watts said. “For 80 percent of them, this was their first exposure to a working manufacturing floor, so to actually get that feeling of the differences between the working world and the college world is a good first step in understanding that it’s a different environment.”

The three-hour tour included a question-and-answer session and was led by Dan Prina, MC Assembly’s Project Manager of Lean Enterprise and Continuous Improvement. The primary goal was to give the students exposure to a real-world manufacturing facility.

“I thought it was awesome,” said Joseph Fisher, a graduate student majoring in mechanical engineering. “The facility is really nice and really well-organized. I was very impressed with the company. They have a huge emphasis on ensuring their supply chain is running efficiently. I liked getting the opportunity to talk with engineers in the industry so I can find out what it’s like.”

Omar Farrag, another mechanical engineering student, said he came away impressed with the level of technology employed by MC Assembly.

“I liked seeing the Automatic Optical Inspector (AOI) machines that scan the circuit boards and figure out the specifications of it and how accurate they are,” Farrag said. “Some of the machines I never thought functioned like that.”

“It was exciting to see the machines and the systematic process they have set up,” said Mario Acosta, a sophomore mechanical engineering major. “It was impressive how exact and precise the machines are and how they were able to place such small components on the boards so quickly.”

The tour was organized by MC Assembly’s Michael Watts, who served as a chairman of the very same ASME Florida Tech Chapter in 1994-1995 when he was a mechanical engineering student.

“Our primary goal is to support the community,” Watts said. “In this case, it was our pleasure to support the local university, Florida Tech, by holding the tour.  It also helps us with brand recognition, as we compete with larger companies in the area who have greater brand recognition. The students were all very curious and found the tour very informative.”

Luis Ramirez, MC Assembly’s Chief Operating Officer, gave an introduction to the group at the start of the tour, talking about various topics including design versus manufacturability. At the end of the tour, the students were encouraged to ask questions. Topics included internships and senior design project opportunities and what to expect from them and many asked about interviewing and resumes.

“Many of them haven’t had internships yet,” Watts said. “For 80 percent of the students, this was their first exposure to a working manufacturing floor, so to actually get that feeling of the differences between the working world and the college world is a good first step in understanding that it’s a different environment and that there’s a lot of fun to be had when you get out of college.”

Watts said these opportunities can make a difference in a student’s career decisions. Some of the students were focused on design engineering, but were curious to see the manufacturing side and learn how the design side connects with the manufacturing side.

“With mechanical engineers, many go into design work, but some go into manufacturing in one way or another,” Watts said. “That’s what happened with me when I was their age. After interning at Rockwell Collins, my passion turned from design to manufacturing, and I switched to industrial engineering. So this was like being on the other side of the fence.”

The symposium is an annual event where key suppliers of Neptune Technology Group gather to review the achievements and goals for the coming year.

“For us, this is an opportunity for the company to bring its suppliers together to ensure that we’re all on the same path to success,” said Wayne Pitchford of Neptune Technology Group. “We appreciate the commitment of business partners like MC Assembly.”

MC Assembly’s Chief Operating Officer Luis Ramirez was the main speaker for the lean journey presentation, based on the company’s Incito lean manufacturing workshops held earlier this year.

“It was an interactive discussion where we shared lessons learned, what has worked and what has not worked, and we showed examples of the accomplishments that resulted from these investments,” Ramirez said. “The goal of the presentation was to encourage other suppliers to learn more about the positive impact of introducing a Lean manufacturing culture.”

MC Assembly has worked with Neptune Technology Group for the past decade. They continue to invest in their mutual success and the past few years have increased its focus on lean initiatives and continuous improvements together.

“Neptune is in a highly competitive business and is counting on the collective strength of their supply base to keep them globally competitive today and for years to come,” Ramirez said. “I know we are 100 percent committed to these efforts to support Neptune’s future successes.”

Since MC Assembly first started its lean manufacturing journey, the manufacturer has seen marked improvements in its quality and service results, company officials said.

“The lean journey is not a singular event and with every investment the company makes in its people-centric culture, the improvement needle moves just a little,” Ramirez said. “It’s a continuous process MC Assembly embraces with its clients and we welcome their participation in their manufacturing journey.”

In addition to Ramirez, MC Assembly’s participants included CEO and President George Moore; VP of Program Management Vicki Cooke; Director of Operations for Mexico Jose Santos; Program Manager Gary Slater and Araceli Garcia, MC Assembly’s lean coordinator for its Mexico facility, located in Zacatecas.

Ramirez said his company’s lean manufacturing efforts take time to produce results.

“One important thing for companies to understand is that lean manufacturing is a journey, like a slow cook recipe,” Ramirez said. “You can put in the ingredients, but it’s going to take some time to see the results in quality and efficiency showing up in your company’s key performance indicators.”

After the presentation, Ramirez said several companies in attendance shared their interest and excitement in starting their own lean journey or re-committing investments and support of their continuous improvement initiatives.

Ramirez said he believes that MC Assembly contributed to both the excitement about the contributions lean can add to the manufacturing process and to a deeper commitment of the Neptune supply chain to this process.

“We definitely feel we’re on the path to future success,” Ramirez said.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly, based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations\in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, incircuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

“We’re giving a couple of families a little better Christmas this year,” said Thom Hansen, director of operations for MC Assembly’s Boston facility.

Earlier this year, the staff talked about looking to see if any families in the community needed help for the holidays. Kristin Casale, a program buyer for MC Assembly, researched local charities and found The Wish Project. The Wish Project provides basic goods to qualified needy families living in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts each year.

“It was such a pleasure to help these families have a better Christmas,” Casale said. “It really warms my heart to know these families will have a few more toys to play with and new clothes to wear. I hope it puts a smile on all their faces. We hope to participate in this organization every year from here on out.”

The Wish Project keeps each family anonymous and gives donors the age, gender and clothing sizes of the family members, along with a list of suggested gifts. MC Assembly purchased gifts for one single mother with four children and one single mother with three children.

The Boston-based staff had originally planned to sponsor one family through The Wish Project, but decided to contact MC Assembly’s Florida-based headquarters to ask if the company would be willing to match the funds raised. This would allow them to help two families through the program. MC Assembly’s corporate headquarters agreed to match the funds and from Thanksgiving through December 10, the Boston staff was able to raise around $1,000 worth of gift and cash donations. With the matching funds, a total of $2,000 in gifts and gift cards went to the two families.

“Our employees were very responsive and decided to each pick a person to shop for, bringing in toys and gifts for each family member,” Hansen said. “We then balanced out the gifts per person and were able to give each family member a $100 gift card on top of the gifts.”

The idea was very well received and everyone was happy to donate and see the results of the effort and what they accomplished in a short period of time.

“I am very proud of the generosity of the Boston team and for MC Assembly to contribute time and money for this effort,” Hansen said. “It will go a long way in helping make a couple of families Holiday a whole lot better.”

In the past, MC Assembly’s Boston staff has participated in a charity golf event for Kids without Christmas and indicated they’re interested in participating in more local community charity events in the future. The Boston staff plans to work more closely with MC Assembly’s community committee based in Florida to coordinate their outreach efforts.

MC Assembly, a leader in electronics manufacturing services, participated in a Habitat for Humanity of Brevard County home building project to help give a single mother and her four young boys a home. Volunteers from MC Assembly spent Dec. 3 painting the interior of the home, installing siding on the exterior and cleaning up the grounds.

The home, built for Guerline “Summer” Binot and her four young boys, is a 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom house. For Binot, who was there on Saturday, this was a long personal struggle for her to complete the Habitat for Humanity program while working and raising four young boys. Habitat for Humanity homeowners pay a mortgage in addition to putting sweat equity into their homes.

“It means everything to me to have a place to call home and make it our own,” Binot said.

This project was selected by MC Assembly’s newly formed “My Community Team” and is the second community outreach initiative they’ve selected in the Melbourne area, home to MC Assembly’s headquarters. Earlier this year, the team participated in a Back to School Drive to help pass out backpacks to students and provide school supplies for teachers.

“As a company, it’s important to us that we’re making an impact in the community,” said Brian Kingston, director of Human Resources at MC Assembly. “After all, in addition to working in Melbourne, many of us live here, too. Being able to give back to the community is important to us.

Kingston said the MC Assembly volunteers were able to apply one coat of paint on all interior walls as well as hang approximately 70 percent of the siding on the home. The ground crew was able to clean up two additional job sites for future Habitat homes.

Kingston said that in addition to being a great team building project outside of their traditional work setting, the project took on a more important value after they met Binot, who goes by the nickname “Summer”.

“It was great to see how this home was going to make a huge impact for her and her family,” Kingston said. “Summer is a great person and we’re very happy we could help her and her family.”

Pam Davis, director of Development and Marketing for Habitat for Humanity of Brevard County, said the organization was thankful that MC Assembly participated in bringing Binot’s dream to life.

“Habitat for Humanity of Brevard County is committed to strengthening communities and peoples’ lives and to creating opportunities for low-income families to develop equity and independence through homeownership,” she said. “Volunteers like those from MC Assembly make it possible for us to achieve this as it really does take an entire community coming together to welcome another family home.”

For more information on Habitat for Humanity, please visit http://www.brevardhabitat.com/. For more information on MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

“It’s a wonderful golf scramble tournament that we invite our suppliers, vendors and customers to participate in,” said Tom Rossi, Director of Procurement and Materials at MC Assembly. It’s a great opportunity to get people together for a good cause.”

Rossi estimates that between golfers and volunteers, about 170 people participate annually and about eighty percent of the players return every year.

“Our suppliers pick up the majority of the sponsorships,” Rossi said. “We raised $12,000 the first year. Over the years, we were able to grow it. Over $200,000 has been raised over the last eight years.”

Since 2009, the tournament has raised funds for Kids Without Christmas. Mike Kelly, who manages the MC Assembly cafeteria service, founded the charity organization 11 years ago.

“When I had my other restaurant, Kelly’s Deli, my daughter had seen a Christmas Giving Tree in school of local children who needed Christmas gifts and taken a name off of it. We came back to drop off the gift a few days before Christmas and saw that there were quite a few names left on the tree. I asked, ‘What about the names that are left? What about them?’” Kelly said.

The lady explained to Kelly that they would receive gift certificates or gift cards for Christmas.

“When I heard that, I thought ‘You can’t give kids gift certificates for Christmas’,” Kelly said. “I called a lot of my buddies and we had a Christmas party at the deli. After the party was over, I told them the food was on the house. We’ve got eight kids that we want to help. I had a little girl who wanted a doll. A boy wanted a bike. Another boy…the kid’s wish was a new pair of shoes. He simply wanted his own,” Kelly said.

Kelly raised $800 with a mayonnaise jar that day. His charity, Kids Without Christmas, that was founded from that raised $85,000 last year. All funds are raised and spent locally in Melbourne and Palm Bay area.

Rossi says the local connection is a big reason why MC Assembly supports Kids Without Christmas.

“It’s a charity that helps local families in our area who need gifts, food and clothing; basically families who would otherwise do without,” Rossi said.

“They’ve [MC Assembly] been our No. 1 contributor,” Kelly said. “They’ve been the best. Nobody can believe that we got over $35,000 from a golf tournament. MC Assembly has afforded us the opportunity to buy for a lot more kids every year for eight years now.”

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Kids for Christmas is that the charity does not spend money on promotions.

“We really like that 99.9 percent goes directly to charity. Kelly doesn’t promote it [spend money on advertising] because it’s successfully promoted by word of mouth,” Rossi said.

“We buy kids clothes, shoes, food and we individually shop for them,” Kelly said. “If they want a blond Barbie with blue dress, then brunette Barbie with the red dress doesn’t work. We have a group of shoppers that will go into Walmart three Sundays before Christmas.”

The wrapping party is always the Sunday before Christmas. Last year the charity wrapped 6,000 presents. 225 people show up to wrap gifts. Kelly says the community has really gotten involved.

“The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office has helped for several years now,” Kelly said. “Sheriff Wayne Ivey and many of his deputies and staff help us wrap the presents. The Sheriff has just donated a computer system that will interlink our charity with all of the local charities in the area. As far as we know this is the first such system like this in the state to be set up.”

Kelly says at one point early on he was considering stopping the charity, but an incident happened that made him continue.

“Unfortunately, it’s only one day a year that we make a difference,” Kelly said. “At one point, I was almost ready to stop when Melbourne Police had a runaway. She had left her boyfriend because he was beating her up. A buddy called me from the police. He said, “Mike, I don’t know if you have any money but I’ve got a mom and her two kids who have no money. I told them to send her over.  She said, ‘I moved here not knowing anyone. I literally cried myself to sleep every night not knowing how I was going to tell them Santa Claus was going to show up this year.’ That’s why we keep doing it.”

This is the third year MC Assembly has attended the AME conference. The week-long conference featured many guest speakers, workshops and panels. The attendees said this is a valuable overall investment for the company to consider the ideas discussed at the conference.

“It’s a great opportunity to meet with manufacturing companies from all over,” said Luis Ramirez, MC Assembly’s Chief Operating Officer. “We talk about best practices and how to improve operations.”

The conference took place from October 24-28. The members who attended were Vice President of Quality and Engineering Jose Sierra, Senior Industrial Engineer Mike Watts, Continuous Improvement Manager Dan Prina, Operations Director of MC Assembly’s Mexico facility Jose Santos, and Operations Director of MC Assembly’s Boston facility Thom Hansen.

“It’s important to never settle for “satisfactory” in our industry,” Watts said. “These conferences are a wonderful opportunity to witness new industry concepts and tools.”

At the conference, one of the major topics of discussion was lean manufacturing. Earlier this year MC Assembly adopted lean manufacturing efficiency methods with Incito Consulting Group lean manufacturing workshops at their Mexico, Massachusetts and Melbourne facilities. Prina, who serves as MC Assembly’s Project Manager of Lean Enterprise and Continuous Improvement, said he was inspired by seeing how so many other companies implemented and talked about Lean manufacturing practices.

“I couldn’t wait to get back in the shop and review our True-North direction and share my experiences in Dallas,” Prina said.

An important part of the conference is sharing current trends to spark new insights for attendees to consider for their own companies to solve problems, improve efficiency or just better handle an ever changing world and business climate. The MC Assembly attendees said there were some good takeaways they learned at the AME Conference that may help MC Assembly in the near future.

“These all affect in one way or another company growth and revenue,” Sierra said. “These concepts will be integrated into our Continuous Improvement Program.”

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

“Teamwork is one of the six core values for MC Assembly and nothing beats coming together at a 5K and watching everyone cross that finish line,” said Brian Kingston, Director of Human Resources for MC Assembly.

Seventy employees from MC Assembly participated in the 5K run. MC Assembly also donated $1,500 towards the cause to help the school reach its fundraising goal and was a corporate sponsor of the event.

Test Engineer Matthew Kemmerer was the first MC Assembly runner to cross the finish line. He had an interesting personal story behind his participation in this run.

“I appreciate the opportunity the company provides by sponsoring these events and encouraging employee participation,” Kemmerer said. “Since being injured in a car accident, this race was the first where I have been able to push through non-stop, so it is a major milestone in my own personal recovery.”

For Kemmerer the cause of this 5K run, helping school kids in the community, was another important aspect of his participation.

“I’ve been involved in helping kids through volunteer activities, such as coaching soccer, in the past, so being able to run and help raise funds for Sherwood Elementary simultaneously was a win-win for me and the school kids,” Kemmerer said.

This is the second 5K race event MC Assembly has participated in. It was selected by MC Assembly’s Wellness Team, which promotes health and wellness as part of the company’s culture by choosing a fitness event for the company to participate in each quarter. The wellness team also coordinates annual wellness checks, quarterly blood drives and annual flu shots.

“The wellness team was created to make fitness initiatives fun and bring our team together outside of the plant,” Kingston said. “Events like these allow for us to strengthen our company culture and internal relationships.”

Kemmerer agrees, pointing out that the wellness events gives everyone a chance to interact with people they normally work with and those in different departments.

“Events like this provide an opportunity to build relationships with colleagues you don’t even get a chance to say hello to in rush of day to day activities,” Kemmerer said. “I have thoroughly enjoyed myself at each event so far and plan to continue on into the future.”

Staff members of MC Assembly, a leading mid-tier electronics manufacturing services provider, recently underwent “Incito Man” Lean Enterprise Simulation Workshops presented by the Incito Consulting Group, a leading Lean and Six Sigma management consulting firm.

“The Incito Man sessions exceeded all my expectations of team work, collaboration and engagement,” said Luis Ramirez, MC Assembly’s Chief Operations Officer. “The purpose of investing in this kind of training is to empower our people by giving them tools to make significant change to provide better service and quality.”

Incito is Latin for “Insight, Inspire and Rapid Change.” Incito’s consultants teach LEAN methodologies through a hands-on simulation. LEAN manufacturing has become a very popular way of eliminating waste in production processes defined by making obvious what adds value by reducing everything else. The workshop focused on improving group problem solving skills, team work and efficiency.

“Incito Man is a great way to get everyone on the same page,” said Tom Reed from the Incito Consulting Group. “New hires are on boarded through their new employee orientation. Plant managers are responsible for shepherding the projects at the plant level.”

Incito training provides lean manufacturing tools to enable employees to understand concepts before using simulation to apply the lessons to real life situations.

“Through this simulation, every employee gets a sense of what other departments do,” Ramirez said. “They learn about each department and how the company works as a whole. When they go back to their normal work they have a much better understanding of the whole process and that leads to better ideas on how to improve it.”

Ramirez says he has noticed a difference in his team after the training. He says the training helps MC Assembly employees focus on efficiency and ways to improve how they accomplish their everyday tasks.

“First we found out that a lot of our people have skills they have not been asked to utilize before,” Ramirez said. “People are not afraid to speak up and be part of the solution. They freely contribute ideas for improvement if they think of a better way to do something. We’ve seen a lot of people step up and suggest some great ideas.”

The first plant to undergo the Incito Man training was MC Assembly’s facility in Zacatecas, Mexico. The company’s staff reported similar results.

“Incito’s experience has been very good, since we got to see firsthand that we are able to work and collaborate as a team,” said Jose Santos, director of operations at MC Assembly’s Zacatecas facility. “A common objective is important in any industry and is key to a successful operation.”

The success of the workshop has encouraged MC Assembly to plan future Incito Man sessions in the company’s Florida and Massachusetts plants. Incito training is scheduled to begin in the Boston facility in December.

“I look forward to the next wave of training and the positive impact we will see in our workforce,” Ramirez said.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

It’s the latest example of how the Florida-based electronics manufacturer is putting the environment front and center, focusing on ways to preserve and protect the country’s natural habitats.

Jake Kulp, MC Assembly’s vice president of New Business Development, regularly volunteers to help preserve Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, cleaning up litter along the Desert Foothill Drive in Arizona.

The Sonoran Desert is one of the most beautiful and biologically diverse desert environments in the world and home to many species of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and even fish. Most notably, it contains more than 2,000 native species of rare plants and is the only place in the world where the famous saguaro cactus grows. It covers about 100,000 square miles along Arizona, California and Mexico.

In 1963, the more than six-mile long Desert Foothills Scenic Drive was established in Scottsdale to preserve the natural beauty of the Sonoran Desert against expanding development. Today, it’s a landmark on the front line efforts to preserve the local environment. Several times a year, volunteers from “Friends of the Desert” meet on weekends to patrol the scenic drive to remove trash deposited by passing vehicles.

“It’s a beautiful stretch of land and one that we feel very passionate about preserving,” Kulp said.

That passion for the environment is a central theme for MC Assembly. At the company’s headquarters in Melbourne, Fla., employees also regularly volunteer to patrol the seashore to remove litter that has washed up on the beach.

And while the company’s employees work throughout the week to create many of the nation’s leading electronic components, the company still manages to keep one eye on nature.

The company is reducing its annual water consumption by more than 74 percent at its Melbourne manufacturing facility, thanks to its new Closed Loop Process Water Recycling System.

Using a system of holding tanks to store the water, the company is able to reuse the water for non-potable needs in its production equipment, constantly monitoring the parts per million (PPM) of the water. Once the water is deemed non-usable for the company’s production equipment, it is diverted to another tank onsite for use in the building’s toilets.

In all, the system saves more than 3 million gallons of water each year, Kulp said.

“We certainly can’t fix all of our environmental problems overnight,” Kulp said. “But it’s our hope that our initiatives inspire others to join us as we work to preserve and protect our environment.”

Offering tier one EMS capabilities with a mid-tier focus, MC Assembly currently has operations in Melbourne, Fla., Billerica, Mass. and Zacatecas, Mexico. In January, the company nearly doubled its manufacturing presence in Billerica, moving to a new 58,000-square-foot manufacturing space.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

“The use of independent manufacturing reps in the industry is common, but this hybrid system and the elements of how we deploy this sales model is uniquely developed by MC Assembly,” said Jake Kulp, MC Assembly’s vice president for New Business Development.

Instead of hiring, training and maintaining a traditional internal and large external sales staff, MC Assembly’s hybrid sales process relies on contracting with manufacturer’s representatives, which are individuals, sales agencies or companies that agree to sell MC Assembly’s services to targeted Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) customers. There are currently 28 rep firms in MC Assembly’s network with a total of 115 reps staffed by those firms participating in this process.

Unlike an employee sales team, manufacturer’s representatives are not paid a regular salary, only an industry average commission on successful contract wins. MC Assembly offers training and sales planning advisement, as well as targeted account discussions, but the reps are ultimately independent business men and women, not directly regulated by MC Assembly like full time employees. Manufacturer’s representatives are protected by specific targeted accounts contractually agreed on.

Timing is very important when approaching an OEM to introduce MC Assembly’s service offerings. If an OEM is not considering outsourcing or switching from their current outsourcing partners, then MC Assembly could spend years calling on the prospect through a traditional sales staff with no results. Conversely, when the time is right to begin the diligence of outsourcing, the rep engages with the leaders inside these prospects, and is alerted much like a “canary in the mine” that the prospective client is now ready to speak with MC Assembly.  They are in the position to make an introduction early in that diligence process.

The most successful reps tend to be established with complementary custom manufactured lines like fabricating metal, stamping metal, machining metal, molding plastic parts, sourcing raw PCBs or selling custom cable assemblies, none of which compete with MC Assembly’s service offerings.

Traditional straight line component reps sell differently than the custom sales process follows. Once identified as a source on the clients’ specs, they focus on fulfillment. They tend to be overwhelmed by the average EMS deal, which spans about 1 to 5 years to win, which is why they’re less likely to succeed with a line like MC Assembly.

“The best reps tend to have grown up in the geographical area they operate in and have developed long standing relationships with various technical and business leaders inside the type of OEM prospects we try to sell to,” Kulp said. “This cuts down on the time it takes to penetrate and understand who actually makes decisions inside those prospects and shortens the total sales cycle.”

MC Assembly has divided the sales territory into four regions of the U.S., Canada and Mexico, managed by MC Assembly’s Business Development Managers (BDM). The rep’s goal is to determine OEM leaders who may be deciding on an outsourcing plan that could include MC Assembly. Once an initial level of “intent to outsource” is established, the manufacturer’s representative brings in an MC Assembly BDM. The BDMs then engage the potential customer to qualify and determine if working together would be a good fit.

“They get us involved at the right time so we can do this up-front diligence to be sure it’s a good expenditure of MC Assembly’s, the reps and the customers time,” Kulp said. “We vet each opportunity to determine if MC Assembly should expend resources in in trying to win the contract or migrate to other opportunities that may be a better company fit for any number of business reasons.”

A disadvantage with reps is that they are independent business people, so MC Assembly cannot dictate how and what they spend their daily time on. Eventually this could lead to extended dry periods of little or no time spent reaching out to potential customers on behalf of the MC Assembly line. Another disadvantage is that the EMS market has a poor reputation for retaining and rewarding sales representatives, so it is sometimes difficult to recruit top talented sales representatives to participate in this industry.

“Considering all the elements that can affect a successful EMS new business development opportunity, we believe that the most effective organization for an EMS company of our size and service offerings is a hybrid system as we have deployed,” Kulp said.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

To make matters worse, the family had been told their insurance would not cover as much of the surgery as Gary and his daughter, Tanya, had hoped. Faced with a growing stack of medical bills, Tarallo, who serves as a director of New Business Development for MC Assembly, turned to his new employer in hopes that it would sponsor a hole in an upcoming charity golf tournament he was staging at Merrimack Valley Golf Club in Methuen, Mass. Tarallo had originally started the charity tournament “Strokes for Evan” in 2014 to help raise money for Evan’s MSUD treatments and donated the additional funding raised to Boston Children’s Hospital to help other children afford their treatments.

MC Assembly, a leading electronics manufacturing services provider in Boston, did more than just donate its name for a tee box, the company sponsored the tournament, helping to raise more than $8,000 this year. The generosity gave Gary, his daughter and little Evan a first-hand look at the company’s commitment to its employees.

“The support of MC Assembly with our event “Strokes for Evan” is unmatched by any other for 3 years and counting,” said Tanya Tarallo. “We strive every year to raise funds not just for Evan, but for the No. 1 pediatric hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital. This year the success was so great that Evan was able to present a fellow sick child with funds to aid in his care, on top of his already hefty donation to the hospital. This would have never been possible without the support of our highest donor, MC Assembly. Their generosity will allow our fundraiser to continue in reaching children for many years to come.”

“As a company, MC Assembly aims to be a positive member of the communities in which it operates,” said George Moore, CEO and President of MC Assembly. “And that care extends to our family of employees.”

Over the years, this has led MC Assembly to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to local charities and community initiatives. The company’s leaders work hard every day to create a team of passionate employees who know their employer not only supports them, but also takes the time to understand their needs and aspirations.

In January, Evan became the first MSUD liver transplant at Boston Children’s Hospital, making Tarallo’s story that much more heartwarming.

“We invest in people and Gary is one of the best,” said Jake Kulp, VP of New Business Development for MC Assembly. “To help him, Tanya and little Evan with this challenging time in Evan’s life was an easy decision. We jumped right in.”

The new contracts give MC Assembly an expanded reach in the aerospace/defense, industrial, medical and telecommunications market sectors. They also help MC Assembly stabilize and become more immune to down-cycles driven by a specific industry segment slump.

The new account wins extend MC Assembly’s electronic manufacturing services with market applications in “green energy” power controls, airborne commercial and military radios, products controlling or eliminating hazardous fluid spills, railroad safety products, military sensors, ruggedized pressure and temperature switches, HVAC, medical products directly supporting patients as well as leading edge medical research, ultra-high speed electronics used in DSP applications, city network systems and four different commercial aircraft platforms; making MC Assembly more immune to down-cycles within any one specific industry segment.

“As we continue to expand our operational capabilities and processes, we periodically re-assess our demand creation processes as well,” said Jake Kulp, vice president of New Business Development for MC Assembly. “The final measure of success relates to the accumulation of the targeted market wins at each of our three operations in the Americas and sends a message that the process and targeted market approach remains sound.”

According to Kulp, the company’s go-to market strategy involves utilizing both regionally based business development managers and independent manufacturer reps to identify prospective clients for MC Assembly. While many EMS companies struggle to execute a balanced sales program between their direct managers and the manufacturer rep organizations, MC Assembly has refined its process, leading to positive outcomes for our clients, our reps and for MC Assembly, Kulp said.

The role of New Business Development, according to Kulp, is to find Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) within MC Assembly’s targeted markets with outsourcing opportunities, understanding how and if they place a value on MC Assembly’s service offerings, identifying the most appropriate manufacturing facility to compete for the business, and winning the business at a sustainable profit margin with executable terms and conditions that are fair and reasonable to both MC Assembly and our customers.

When the MC Assembly management team assesses its past wins they are pleased with both the dispersion between the plants as well as the percentage by market contributions from the Industrial, Aerospace/Defense, Medical and Telecommunications markets.

While MC Assembly executes to their existing strategy, the addition of a focused automotive market penetration is their next investment into the future of the company. The company expects the industry to see a more visible business engagement effort in this market later in 2017.

“This balanced approach to running our business ensures that MC Assembly will remain a leading mid-tier EMS provider leaving our mark on the challenging electronics manufacturing services industry we are part of,” Kulp said.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

But if the old adage is to be believed, then all good things do in fact take time, even in the fast-pace, high-tech world of electronics manufacturing.

That’s where the real value in MC Assembly lies – adapting and optimizing product life cycles for their clients. MC Assembly is acutely aware of the effects that time and future innovation can have on technology.

Getting Granular About Electronics Manufacturing

Take the company’s New Product Introduction (NPI) process for example. Jose Sierra, vice president of quality and engineering, knows that executing a reliable new product introduction for a customer needs to begin, well, at the beginning.

“If you look at some new product introduction processes, they look at a product as a general platform,” Sierra said. “We take the process to a granular level to develop it.”

That means creating a process that adapts and morphs to fit every unique and individual products current requirements and specifications.

The NPI process MC Assembly has in place is robust, repeatable and reliable; whether launching one new product or one hundred products. This ensures the highest probability of successful first article launches for MC’s clients. In other words, it allows the company to understand the requirements and to look at it on an assembly-by-assembly basis. It helps them ensure that they’re deploying a process to meet all those design and performance requirements. Whether that’s implementing tooling, designing a new fixture, putting the proper process routing together and iteratively getting the product build steps completed to the product needs, MC Assembly’s NPI process is an industry high water mark.

Designing a Better Board Another area where the MC Assembly team shines is in working collaboratively with the customer’s design team to ensure that each product produced will work reliably well into the future.

“Strength and reliability can be gained from design changes,” said Andy Nunenkamp. “The  manufacturing cost and the cycle time are optimized from collaboration.”

Being a part of the design phase makes this sort of collaboration return large rewards through the product’s life cycle. It gives MC Assembly’s manufacturing team the opportunity to give constructive feedback that ultimately impacts the design in a positive way.

“Both our customers and MC Assembly benefit significantly from a partner we can collaborate with through a design for manufacturability (DFM) process where they will actually make changes to create a product that can be manufactured in volumes without rework or errors,” Nunenkamp said.

Performing a BOM Scrub Then there are the raw material components that go into creating those PCBAs. The last thing any customer wants is a board that will become outdated due to obsolete components, before its usable life has expired.

MC Assembly solves that problem by performing a comprehensive bill of materials (BOM) scrub to ensure that all parts being utilized are within acceptable life cycle / supply tolerances. These BOM scrubs, if done early enough in the design process, can help customers see areas where they have exposure in their initial component selections, with some time to take MC’s cross reference suggestions, if there are any. They also offer a level of transparency that many electronics manufacturing services providers don’t’ offer.

Jake Kulp, vice president of new business development, said MC Assembly recommends that new clients take advantage of the technology, engineering services and tools that his company’s engineers have at their disposal.

“Take RF water meters for example,” Kulp said. “They’re buried underground and they have to work, regardless of where they have been deployed, Arizona or Illinois. You don’t want to dig up all of Miami in five years’ time because you have a reliability issue.”

MC Assembly has made a business decision to create value with an OEM selecting them as a manufacturing partner by offering these engineering optimization services free of charge, as well as other services such a design for test (DFT) and design for assembly (DFA) if they are building the whole box build.

Posey spoke with workers about their concerns this election season during a 90-minute visit to the Melbourne facility, located at 425 North Drive in Melbourne.

The representative also toured the manufacturing plant, which provides electronics manufacturing services for some of the country’s largest companies.

“We showed Rep. Posey how the Space Coast is thriving because of the hard work of the people of Brevard County,” said George Moore, CEO and president of MC Assembly, a $200-million manufacturer based in Melbourne. “More than $60 million dollars are directly re-invested by MC Assembly in the state of Florida, with over $30 million in Brevard County alone, proof that MC Assembly is contributing to the success of the Space Coast.”

Posey, who serves on the Committee on Science, Space and Technology and its two subcommittees on Space and Oversight, was given a guided tour of the MC Assembly plant, where the company produces electronics for the aviation, medical, telecommunications and defense industries.

“We’re a local business with our roots firmly planted in Brevard County,” Moore said. “The success of MC Assembly and its workers is proof of what can happen when government works to support American businesses like ours.”

Posey, currently serving his fourth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, represents Florida’s 8th Congressional District, which includes all of Brevard and Indian counties as well as a portion of Orange County (Bithlo, Christmas and Wedgefield).

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

MC Assembly, a leading mid-tier electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider, is introducing the lean manufacturing program of the Incito Consulting Group across its three North American manufacturing facilities.

Incito Consulting Group is introducing its five-step deployment model to MC Assembly’s manufacturing plants located in Melbourne, Fla., Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico. The five-step plan offers a social to technical focus that highlights vision, analysis, knowledge, deployment and sustainment.

“As we continue to expand our capabilities and roster of customers, our focus on lean manufacturing principles needs to remain laser focused,” said Luis Ramirez, chief operating officer for MC Assembly. “Incito and its unique training deployment gives us that focus.”

Ramirez said the company began its deployment earlier this year in its Zacatecas facility in Mexico. The rollout centered around an “Incito Man” workshop where MC Assembly employees participated in live simulation exercises that covered everything from service to production. Ramirez said the successful workshop made it easy for MC Assembly executives to expand the scope to include all three plants.

“Our team came away from the training with not only a successful approach to real-work challenges but also an increased focus on applying the lessons to our organization on a daily basis,” said Ramirez, who quickly scheduled a second “Incito Man” session for Zacatecas as well as a rollout in the company’s North American headquarters in Melbourne, Fla. In August. “We’re excited to see where the training takes us.

According to Tom Reed of Incito (Latin for “insight, inspire and rapid change”) the training deployment offered MC Assembly an opportunity to bring the concepts and principles of lean manufacturing, originally made famous from its use by companies such as Toyota, to the company’s most integral workers on the manufacturing floor.

“They saw the value in being able to roll out lean manufacturing to a team of employees who will go on to create a lasting impact for MC Assembly,” Reed said. “That’s where the real value in lean manufacturing lies – with a company’s team members.”

Offering tier one EMS capabilities with a mid-tier focus, MC Assembly currently has operations in Melbourne, Fla., Billerica, Mass. and Zacatecas, Mexico. In January, the company nearly doubled its manufacturing presence in Billerica, moving to a new 58,000-square-foot manufacturing space.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

MC Assembly may be a leading mid-tier electronics manufacturing services provider serving clients around the world but the company still understands the importance of supporting the communities where its team members work and live. Teachers in Brevard County discovered that commitment recently.

The MC Assembly “My Community” team helped gather school supplies for economically vulnerable children in Brevard County. The school supply drive was in conjunction with Brevard’s Supply Zone for Teachers, which was created to meet the needs of the area’s school-age children.

An alarming 52 percent of students in the economically vulnerable areas determined by Brevard County live on the brink of poverty, with many of them arriving at school each year with no basic school supplies. Often times, teachers pay for those supplies out of their own pocket.

“Teachers do what they can but they shouldn’t be asked to shoulder this burden by themselves,” said MC Assembly’s Director of Human Resources Brian Kingston, who said the average teacher can spend upwards of $600 per year on their students. “That’s why we feel so strongly about supporting this worthy cause.”

So the MC Assembly “My Community” team staged their own internal supply drive to help support the Supply Zone for Teachers. The electronics manufacturer was able to donate thousands of dollars’ worth of school supplies for the county’s youngsters.

“Children shouldn’t start the school year off at a disadvantage,” Kingston said. “Hopefully our donation drive has helped to take the burden off local teachers and will help put these kids on the path to success.”

United Electric Controls is a global supplier of pressure and temperature switches, transmitters, controls, sensors and more. The company’s explosion-proof pressure transmitters provide continuous pressure monitoring in hazardous area applications, specifically within the oil and gas industries. The company’s full range of products serves the process, discrete, semiconductor, aerospace and defense industries.

MC Assembly will manufacture custom electronics for the international company, which has manufactured durable and reliable products for the oil, gas, chemical, petrochemical, water, wastewater and power industries since 1931.

“United Electric Controls is a long-established business that represents that type of companies we enjoy partnering with at MC Assembly,” said Jake Kulp, vice president of sales and marketing for MC Assembly. “Our commitment as an electronics manufacturing services provider is to provide our clients with a low-risk, total product life cycle solution for their needs.”

Offering tier one EMS capabilities with a mid-tier focus, MC Assembly currently has operations in Melbourne, Fla., Billerica, Mass. and Zacatecas, Mexico. In January, the company nearly doubled its manufacturing presence in Billerica, moving to a new 58,000-square-foot manufacturing space.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly

MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

The water savings totals more than 3 million gallons of water each year, company officials said, reducing waste while reallocating water usage into a more efficient and eco-friendly system.

George Moore, CEO of MC Assembly, said after a careful analysis of its water usage, the electronics manufacturer determined the majority of its water usage stemmed from onsite consumption of DI/RO water for the cleaning of printed circuit assemblies and the use of potable water for non-potable uses by employees.

“We immediately realized there were significant usage savings that could occur if we changed our existing model,” Moore said. “But at the end of the day, even we were surprised at just how big an impact we could have on reducing our environmental footprint.”

The Closed Loop Process Water Recycling System uses a combination of dual Reverse Osmosis Systems and a dual Electronic Deionizing System.  Using a system of holding tanks to store the water, the company is able to reuse the water for non-potable needs in its production equipment, constantly monitoring the parts per million (PPM) of the water. Once the water is deemed non-usable for the company’s production equipment, it is diverted to another tank onsite for use in the building’s toilets.

“It’s our job to be good stewards of the communities that we work and live in,” Moore said. “This system allows us to do just that.”

Offering tier one EMS capabilities with a mid-tier focus, MC Assembly currently has operations in Melbourne, Fla., Billerica, Mass. and Zacatecas, Mexico. In January, the company nearly doubled its manufacturing presence in Billerica, moving to a new 58,000-square-foot manufacturing space.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

This year’s donation brought the company’s charitable donations to more than $230,000 over the last eight years. MC Assembly officials said they were first drawn to Kids Without Christmas because of the charity’s focus on providing families with gifts, food and clothing during the holiday season.

“It’s an organization that’s easy to support because of all the good it does in the community,” said George Moore, CEO of MC Assembly. “But beyond that, we’re impressed with just how efficient Kids Without Christmas is, with 99 percent of its donations going back into the community. You don’t see that every day.”

Kids Without Christmas is the brainchild of Mike Kelly, who coincidentally runs the cafeteria service for MC Assembly. Kelly said his charity fills a basic need for the community.

“We run out of money before we run out of kids,” Kelly said. “There’s a tremendous need in this community and MC Assembly’s support helps fill that need.”

MC Assembly’s contribution each year is due in large part to an annual golf tournament the company holds at Duran Golf Club. Close to 200 golfers and volunteers turn out for the annual outing, held each March.

“It’s a chance for us to gather our employees, partners and friends together for a day of great golf on a beautiful course,” Moore said.

The full-field scramble tournament counted Kevin Oser of Merrill Lynch, Will Glass of BB&T Insurance Services, Keith Naylor of Lincoln Financial Group and Brian Kingston, director of human resources for MC Assembly as its winning team this year. Moore said everyone is more focused on keeping score of donations rather than just golf scores, however.

“First place, last place, birdie or bogey, it doesn’t really matter to us,” Moore said. “The real winners of our tournament are the children of Melbourne.”

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, and full box-build direct order fulfillment.

The companies have enjoyed a supportive and productive relationship for nearly a decade, with MC Assembly, a national leader in contract manufacturing, working to support all aspects of Doble’s product life cycles.

Doble representatives presented the award to MC Assembly CEO George Moore during a recent meeting at MC Assembly’s corporate offices in Florida.

“I’m delighted to say Doble has become one of our top customers, based on any metric a manufacturing plant could use to measure its customer base,” said Moore, who pointed to the two companies’ cell team partnership as the catalyst for the award. “We’re honored to have Doble in our portfolio and will continue to earn their trust and business in the future.”

Neil Gillen, director of Global Operations at Doble Engineering Company, said: “MC Assembly is a valued Doble vendor that plays a key role in our global supply chain. Through the close collaboration and the dedication of the Doble and MC Assembly teams, we produce world-class solutions serving the needs of the electric power industry. Doble is proud to present its Vendor of the Year award to MC Assembly.”

Offering Tier One EMS capabilities with a mid-tier focus, MC Assembly currently has operations in Melbourne, Fla., Billerica, Mass. and Zacatecas, Mexico. In January, the company nearly doubled its manufacturing presence in Billerica, moving to a new 58,000-square-foot manufacturing space.

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass. and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, full box-build and direct order fulfillment.

About Doble Engineering Company Now in 110 countries, Doble Engineering Company has been helping clients in the electric power industry improve operations and optimize system performance for nearly a century. Doble offers diagnostic instruments, services, and the world’s premier library of statistically significant apparatus test results for the benefit of energy generation, transmission, delivery companies and industrial power users worldwide. Doble is part of the Utility Solutions Group of ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ESE), St. Louis. For more information, visit: www.doble.com.

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Contact: Jake Kulp. VP of Business Development, 321-409-4774,  jkulp@mcati.com

MC Assembly, a leading mid-tier electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider, expands manufacturing presence within Billerica, Massachusetts’ high technology business hub.

A national leader in contract manufacturing, the move almost doubles the company’s manufacturing presence in Billerica. The new 58,000-square-foot space further demonstrates MC Assembly’s commitment to an electronics-rich area where many of the company’s competitors are vacating, said Jake Kulp, vice president of new business development for MC Assembly.

“This capacity expansion will allow us to achieve our growth objectives with both our existing customer base as well as our targeted new clients,” Kulp said. “Coupled with the extensive capital equipment investments we continue to make in the Northeast, we believe we have a compelling manufacturing option for our clients.”

MC Assembly CEO and President George Moore said it was important to the company to expand its manufacturing base without disrupting the day-to-day business of the companies and vendors it serves. He said the seamless transition was a testament to the quality of MC Assembly’s employees.

“Our value proposition and corporate platform sales offerings are some of the strongest in the mid-tier EMS space,” Moore said. “MC Assembly’s commitment to offer our Northeastern stakeholders the best possible work environment and our customers a world-class manufacturing solution as we have constructed in Billerica, suggests we will have a very long future in this area of the country.”

For more information about MC Assembly, please visit www.mcati.com.

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with operations in Billerica, Mass., Palm Bay, Fla., and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, full box-build and direct order fulfillment.

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The award was created to honor local manufacturing companies who are committed to the community and excel at brining new opportunities through job creation and/or retention, new construction and new capital investments. Representatives of the Economic Development Commission praised MC Assembly® as representing the next generation of innovative thinking in manufacturing. The commission also stated that while the Space Coast has always been a high technology leader, MC Assembly® is revolutionizing the manufacturing industry in the local market.

George Moore, CEO of MC Assembly®, thanked the Commission for this award. “In 2014, we made a commitment to invest $17 million in the development of a state-of-the-art electronics manufacturing facility and retain 500 jobs in the local market. I am pleased to say we are well on our way to accomplishing our goal as our new facility is 90 percent complete and we are now providing 647 jobs for Brevard County citizens.”

About MC Assembly®

MC Assembly®, with global headquarters in Melbourne, FL, offers Tier One EMS capabilities with a mid tier customer focus. Founded in 1984 as a printed circuit board test facility, MC Assembly® became a provider of full turnkey contract manufacturing services in 1989. The company has been majority owned by Cyprium Investment Partners (previously the private equity business of KeyBank) since February 2007. The primary services offered by MC Assembly® include: new product introduction, printed circuit board assembly, box build/integration, and engineering support services and test development. Today, MC Assembly has an employee base of approximately 1300 associates, spread across its headquarters site in Melbourne, as well as locations in Boston, MA and Zacatecas, Mexico.

Media Contact: Jake Kulp, MC Assembly, 321-409-4774, jkulp@mcati.com

With operations in Winchester, Massachusetts, Palm Bay, Florida, and Zacatecas, Mexico, MC Assembly is a major contract manufacturer based in Palm Bay with annual revenues of about $200 million.

The firm provides manufacturing services for medium volume printed-circuit-board (PCB) assemblies and box builds, with capabilities that include surface-mount and pin-through-hole technologies. The company also offers PCB and box build design-for-manufacturability (DFM), design-for-test (DFT), and design-for-assembly (DFA) engineering, along with in-circuit functional and environmental testing, and full box-build and direct-order fulfillment.

The company is focused mainly on aerospace, defense, medical, industrial, and niche telecommunications markets.

MC Assembly (www.mcati.com) recently received the 20/20 award from Zeiss (www.zeiss.com), a global leader in the medical technology area, as a top performing supplier of electrical commodities purchased by Zeiss. The award requires near-perfect on-time delivery and outstanding quality score for the applicable 12-month period.

MC’s medical products can be found in medical applications around the world, including in minor emergency care, research centers, specialized women’s health-care services, blood analysis centers, military MASH-type units, and trauma centers.

Earning the award requires a commitment to quality and shipping products that meet customer specifications, on-time and within budget.

MC is supported by superior supply-chain software tool sets. It uses these tools to aid a customer with such functions as bill of materials (BOM) management at any time during the product life cycle. The investment in software tools helps MC to provide customers with numerous electronic manufacturing services (EMS) functions, including BOM optimization, BOM expansions, restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS) conversions, end-of-life management, and obsolescence parts management. MC also employs advanced material planning tools that allow the “mass customization” of specific supply-chain solutions that are tailored to each unique customer profile. Often, multiple solutions may be developed to serve the complex and diverse needs of a single client.

MC has made a strategic decision to offer design for excellence (DFx) engineering services free of charge for production clients, in contrast to many companies that charge nonrecurring engineering (NRE) fees for DFx engineering support services. By not charging for these services, the company intends to have focused customers take advantage of the services, allowing it to fully service customers with long product life cycles typical of many of the company’s markets.

Globally Competitive

With the “scalability” of its EMS capabilities in its two domestic and low-cost-regional central Mexico facility, MC Assembly is globally competitive. The MC Mexico facility provides competitive labor without sacrificing inventory time or cash-to-cash cycles, and helps an OEM remain flexible in terms of delivery schedules. The MC Mexico facility takes advantage of an extremely stable central Mexico workforce with extremely low turnover, which many clients find quite attractive.

MC Assembly works with every client with a goal of “zero defect” manufacturing, even though many OEM designs may not invite this approach. But instead of forcing A large production floor handles SMT assembly operations. design rules on its clients, MC Assembly attempts to optimize the initial designs by means of its extensive DFx services. The use of custom thermal profiles for each PCB assembly helps ensure optimum solder flow and coverage.

Raw materials are aggressively screened at incoming inspection with the goal of detecting and removing nonconforming components. To maintain control, part number assignments unique to each customer are given to all raw materials.

The incoming material quality control system integrates a variety of tools to ensure that the correct raw materials are being received, including optical bar-code readers with embedded radio-frequency (RF) communications, configuration management (CM) tools to verify tolerances for all mechanical components, board fabrication core laboratories for verifying complex raw PCBs, and electrical measurement tools for incoming inspection. In addition, extensive quality histories are maintained for every part ever purchased.

Once kits are pulled from individual stocking locations, off-line SMT setup and validations are used to ensure that the correct components are loaded onto the correct feeders. Scanners at the SMT base platforms are used for final verification that the right feeders are installed in the correct sequences as well.

Paste Height Inspection

When the manufacturing process begins at MC Assembly, automated three-dimensional (3D) paste height inspection, color in-line automated optical inspection, and a paperless work flow system monitor in-process manufacturing activity and verify that the highest quality standards will be maintained. First-pass SMT, in-circuit test (ICT), functional capacity test (FCT), and functional quality audit (FQA) testing are recorded within the paperless system for analysis, reporting, and corrective actions. When visual verification is not possible, powerful x-ray tools are available to inspect solder reflow and other circuit features. Such manufacturing process support is backed by considerable test capability, with test systems that can measure PCB assemblies and box builds for requirements established by their customers or by MC Assembly for its customers.

Robust quality management system (QMS) gear at the three plants reinforce the manufacturing process and test equipment. The QMS equipment and procedures applied at each facility are focused on the specific needs of each customer and the specific markets that they serve.

All three manufacturing centers are guided by a culture and belief that for a business to be successful, it must pay attention to its stakeholders, shareholders, vendors, and customers. The firm often refers to the “fourlegged stool of success.” For a business to be successful, it must build on its relationships with its stakeholders, shareholders, vendors, and their customers, and to excel at maintaining focus on each over the entire year in order to be successful.

In spite of its many capabilities, MC does not work with a large number of customers. Rather, the firm tries to seek out customers that will appreciate its capabilities. This up-front investment in achieving the best possible alignment between MC and its customers tends to support longer-term relationships. This approach to serving customers also includes targeted expansion of service offerings in support of these customers, covering an entire product life cycle, to help deepen the relationships with those customers.

The more that an OEM and an EMS supplier such as MC Assembly can achieve a working relationship, and share strengths and weaknesses, the more that an alignment can be achieved on the important aspects of the business. Such efforts can, for example, help reduce the risk of making sourcing decisions.

MC Assembly believes it is important that the company is as much a part of that process as the OEM and as such, tends to develop very long-standing and enduring engagements in targeted markets.

Contact: MC Assembly, 2755 Kirby Circle, Palm Bay, FL 32905 (321) 253-0541 E-mail: jkulp@mcati.com Web: www.mcati.com

The move will support MC Assembly’s vision of remaining the preeminent America’s based mid-tier Electronics Manufacturing Service provider and will enhance the customer, vendor, and stakeholder experience with MC Assembly, while positioning the business for a strong future.

“We are highly focused on increasing our customer’s through-put in our factories, decreasing waste at all levels of the processes, improving the quality of our products, and increasing our responsiveness to the ever increasing demands being placed upon us,” said George Moore, MC Assembly CEO and President. “MC Assembly’s commitment to offer our stakeholders the best possible work environment, more centrally located to where the majority of our employees live, retaining jobs in central Florida and positioning the company for growth to add more jobs here is also at the core of this move.”

Moore continued: “We have also considered the impact the move would have on our vendors and our intent is to not only maintain our levels of spend in the Florida market, but enable that to increase as we add additional customers to our growing portfolio. The move to the new location will be carefully choreographed to avoid disrupting the flow of finished goods we are committed to ship to our customer base. We do expect to be moved and completely operational in the new facility in early 2015.”

MC Assembly wants to acknowledge the support received from the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast, the city of Melbourne, and Brevard County, through the site selection process. The company expects to have a ground breaking ceremony later this year to unveil the new state of the art factory as well as the investments that we will be making in the new facility.

About MC Assembly

MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Palm Bay, FL with operations in Winchester, Massachusetts, Palm Bay, Florida and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, incircuit, functional and environmental testing, full box-build and direct order fulfillment.

Contact: Jake Kulp. VP of Business Development, 321-409-4774, jkulp@mcati.com

“MC Assembly’s automated optical inspection (AOI) capabilities have been enhanced with the addition of the Koh Young Zenith equipment. The Zenith 3D AOI system measures the true profilometric shapes of components, solder joints,patterns and even foreign material on printed circuit board assemblies with a true three-dimensional measurement. This allows us to more accurately evaluate the workmanship and quality of the ever increasing complex PCBAs being manufactured by MC Assembly,” said Luis Ramirez, COO of MC Assembly.

“Our commitment to our customers quality needs remains one of our top priorities and the success of our business supports our continued investments to differentiate MC capabilities from other EMS companies,” said George Moore, CEO of MC Assembly. “It is our belief that the differentiation through technical service offerings and increased quality will keep MC positioned well into the future.”

Contact: Jake Kulp. VP of Business Development, 321-409-4774, jkulp@mcati.com

About MC Assembly

MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Palm Bay, FL with operations in Winchester, Massachusetts, Palm Bay, Florida and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, full box-build and direct order fulfillment.

PALM BAY, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–MC Assembly, a leading mid-tier electronic manufacturing services (EMS) provider, announced today that it has achieved AS9100 Rev C implementation and certification for its Winchester, Massachusetts manufacturing facility. This certification, which provides a common set of quality requirements across the global aerospace community, accredits MC Assembly’s Quality Management System compliance to the aerospace requirements to manufacture and service printed circuit board assemblies, sub-assemblies and final assemblies.

“Achieving AS9100 certification in our Massachusetts facility further validates our commitment to the aerospace and defense marketplace in the Northeast.”

MC Assembly has extensive experience working with leading aerospace and defense companies to provide superior quality products supported by high-technology inspection tools, robust quality systems, ITAR certification, J-STD-001E and IPC class 3 soldering capabilities. In addition, MC Assembly in Massachusetts has made significant capital equipment investments over the last year in support of both the aerospace and defense marketplace.

“We maintain a strategic commitment to our country’s leading aerospace and defense companies,” said George Moore, Chief Executive Officer and President at MC Assembly. “Achieving AS9100 certification in our Massachusetts facility further validates our commitment to the aerospace and defense marketplace in the Northeast.”

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Palm Bay, FL with operations in Winchester, Massachusetts, Palm Bay, Florida and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB DFM and DFT engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, full box-build and direct order fulfillment. Cyprium Partners, a private equity firm focused primarily on non-control investments, acquired majority ownership of MC Assembly in 2007.

Gino Pereira, CEO of NXT-ID, said: “July is an appropriate time to announce that Wocket will be made in the USA. With most tech companies manufacturing overseas for reasons of economy, we are proud to announce that we will be partnering with MC Assembly to manufacture our biometric smart wallet in Melbourne, FL. We believe some of the highest quality products in the world are made in the USA. We hope to create a win-win situation where we can offer consumers superior product and help to create jobs in the local economy.”

MC Assembly is a major manufacturing services company with operations in Winchester, Massachusetts, Palm Bay Florida and Zacatecas, Mexico. The company is focused mainly on aerospace, defense, medical, industrial and niche telecommunications markets.

“MC Assembly is delighted to be selected as NXT-ID’s manufacturing partner,” said Jake Kulp, Vice President of New Business Development at MC Assembly. “This exciting new product will utilize all of the MC Assembly’s leading edge technology manufacturing capital equipment as well as our global supply-chain management and planning tool sets,” Mr. Kulp added. “MC Assembly remains committed to the growth of Florida base jobs and serving the high-technology central Florida manufacturing needs like those required by NXT-ID.”

NXT-ID is introducing its innovative, patent-pending Wocket™ as the next natural step in the evolution of smart devices following the smart phone and smart watch. Wocket™ is a next generation smart wallet designed to protect your identity and replace all the cards in your wallet, with no smart phone required. The Wocket works anywhere credit cards are accepted and only works with your biometric stamp of approval.

Credit, debit, ATM, loyalty, gift, ID, membership, insurance, ticket, emergency, medical, business, contacts, coupon, and virtually any card can be protected on Wocket™. More than 10,000 cards, records, coupons, etc. and 100 voice commands can also be stored on Wocket™.

NXT-ID, INC. Financials EDGAR Online Financials 19 days ago NXT-ID, INC. Files SEC form 10-Q, Quarterly Report EDGAR Online 1 mth 2 days ago More Wocket™ is now available for advance ordering at www.wocketwallet.com at a price of $149.99.

The full Wocket product FAQ is available to consumers and media at http://nxt-id.com/wocket-faq/

About MC Assembly

MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Palm Bay, FL with operations in Winchester, Massachusetts, Palm Bay, Florida and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole PCBAs, DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, full box-build and direct order fulfillment.

Contact: Jake Kulp. VP of Business Development, 321-409-4774,  jkulp@mcati.com

The 20/20 Supplier Excellence Award honor was awarded to MC Assembly as the top performing supplier in the electrical commodity category purchased by Zeiss. The award requires an almost perfect on-time delivery and quality score for a given 12 month period of time.

“Zeiss has very high expectations of their supply-chain partners and with the complexity of the product line MC Assembly builds for us, this is a great accomplishment,” stated a Zeiss spokesperson.

“MC Assembly’s commitment to excel in the healthcare marketplace has never been clearer than with the receipt of the Zeiss 20/20 Supplier Excellence Award,”said Jake Kulp, MC Assembly’s Vice President of Business Development. “We are honored to have received this award and the leadership at MC Assembly is challenging our Zeiss cell team to raise the bar by adding more value to the overall Zeiss relationship to meet our customer’s ever increasing challenges in the competitive healthcare environment.”

About MC Assembly

MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Palm Bay, FL with operations in Winchester, Massachusetts, Palm Bay, Florida and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pinthrough-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, full box-build and direct order fulfillment.

About Zeiss

Zeiss (www.zeiss.com ) is an international leader in the fields of optics and optoelectronics serving the markets for Industrial Solutions, Research Solutions, Medical Technology and Consumer Optics, Zeiss has contributed to technological progress all over the world for more than 160 years and enhances the quality of life of many people around the globe.

Contact: Jake Kulp. VP of Business Development, 321-409-4774, jkulp@macti.com

WALTHAM, Mass. – April 9, 2013 – Actifio™, the radically simple copy data management company, today announced that its Copy Data Storage platform has been successfully implemented by MC Assembly, a leader in the contract manufacturing industry, for backup, disaster recovery and test and development across their four locations.

MC Assembly is a 29 year old, US-based contract manufacturing company with 1,800 employees.  The company builds a range of products, some of which are life-sustaining for its medical diagnostic customer(s). In doing so, the company has realized tremendous data growth across it’s three locations in Florida, Massachusetts, Mexico and their disaster recovery site in Washington State.

With one petabyte of data moving between its facilities from several hundred servers, MC Assembly was experiencing the financial and operational strain of rapid data growth, but had a legal obligation to maintain its records for seven-to-ten years.  It engaged with Actifio to make its data recoverable within minutes from physical disaster or corruption, accessible and virtualized—to allow for rapid data growth while containing costs.

“Before Actifio, we were performing old fashioned backups, which were tedious and horrendous to recover from. Data recovery was a five step process and would take couple of days, or longer,” said Daniel Acosta, enterprise architect, MC Assembly. “It was the way we lived, but it was not acceptable.  Now, we are at a place with Actifio where I don’t lose sleep. If a SQL Database or even subdirectories of files are accidentally deleted, we can have it back in several clicks of the mouse—

With Actifio, MC Assembly’s production environment is backed up and prepped for disaster recovery at the same time, as part of an automated process. Actifio also takes rolling snapshots every couple of hours. MC Assembly no longer has to buy tiered storage to maintain snapshots and worry about data loss through accidental deletion or backup corruption.

“We were back up and running within six minutes after a server died and we experienced complete data loss. I no longer have to worry about recovering data, or how long it will take. I can now tell our employees that their data will be back in a few minutes, and for customers, after a one minute server reboot,” continued Acosta. “If someone deletes something accidentally, I can pull a snapshot from a previous point in time and make it a server within minutes. This software is so intuitive that a first year technician could run it.”

Actifio is radically simple copy data storage.  By virtualizing the storage and management of data, Actifio can replace any or all of the siloed data protection and availability storage applications a company might be using, with a single system that’s purpose-built to manage copy data.  PAS creates a single, perfect copy of production data and maintains changes to that master copy in a way that gives users a simple application running in a single window to recover anything, from any time, instantly.  Doing so delivers recovery times in minutes instead of hours, even for large scale application data sets, while slashing total cost of ownership by as much as 90 percent versus the traditional model.

“Large, distributed enterprises like MC Assembly represent the resurgence of domestic manufacturing, who using smart technologies to compete on a global-scale,” said Ash Ashutosh, Actifio founder and CEO.  “We’re excited to be apart of the team’s mission to not only protect their data but to also enable their business to thrive using our Copy Data Storage system. “

– See more at: http://www.actifio.com/press-releases/mc-assembly-manages-rapid-data-growth/#sthash.d5WAzQf0.dpuf

The award is given for outstanding contract manufacturing services support and measures excellent product quality, technical support, post-delivery product sustainability and on-time delivery.

The award was presented to MC Assembly during a March 2013 quarterly business review held at MC Assembly’s headquarters.

“The history and infrastructure that MC Assembly has as a developer and manufacturer of test equipment is noteworthy, said Edward Lindsey, Doble Engineering’s Director of Global Production. “MC Assembly’s ‘Quality is a Mindset’ culture, combined with lean manufacturing techniques, 6-S facilities organization, forward approach to managing Doble’s supply chain, dedication to investing in its employees, and continued investments in manufacturing and test capital equipment, continues to set MC Assembly apart from less qualified contract manufacturers.”

George Moore, CEO of MC Assembly, accepted the award.

“We are honored to be recognized by Doble Engineering, a known world leader in its field, and to receive its Supplier Quality Award,” Moore said. “I have challenged the MC Assembly team to find other avenues for our company to differentiate itself in support of Doble and keep the relationship strong for many years to come.”

About MC Assembly

MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Melbourne, Fla., with additional operations in Billerica, Mass. and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB and box build DFM, DFT, DFA engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, full box-build and direct order fulfillment.

About Doble Engineering Company

Now in 110 countries, Doble Engineering Company has been helping clients in the electric power industry improve operations and optimize system performance for nearly a century. Doble offers diagnostic instruments, services, and the world’s premier library of statistically significant apparatus test results for the benefit of energy generation, transmission, delivery companies and industrial power users worldwide. Doble is part of the Utility Solutions Group of ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ESE), St. Louis. For more information, visit: www.doble.com.

Mr. Kulp joined MC Assembly in 2006 and has over 33 years of electronics experience. He is responsible for leading and guiding the company’s strategic directives as well as new business development and marketing efforts. Prior to joining MC Assembly, Mr. Kulp served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for another mid tier EMS provider. Mr. Kulp has leadership experience in a sheet metal fabrication and stamping turn-around environment and he spent over 21 years in the electronics systems and interconnect marketplace with AMP Incorporated. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Marketing from Bloomsburg State University.

MC Assembly is a leading mid tier electronics manufacturing service provider with state of the art production facilities in the United States and Mexico. The company offers a wide range of manufacturing, test and engineering support services across a broad market spectrum.  Service offerings include front-end concurrent design (DFX) services; plated through-hole and surface mount printed circuit board assemblies, complex sub-assemblies, complete box builds and warranty / repair services. Our technology focus is high end signal, power, high frequency RF and fiber optics platforms, with about 50% of our revenue coming from box builds.

MC Assembly’s market place focus is centered on the industrial, medical, aerospace, defense, and the high-end telecom industries.

Lavanya Rammohan: Can you provide a brief introduction about MC Assembly and the products/services it offers?

Jake Kulp: MC Assembly is a leading mid tier electronics manufacturing service provider with state of the art production facilities in the United States and Mexico. We offer a wide range of manufacturing, test and engineering support services across a broad market spectrum. Our service offerings include front-end concurrent design (DFX) services; plated through-hole and surface mount printed circuit board assemblies, complex sub-assemblies, complete box builds and warranty / repair services.

Our market place focus is centered on the industrial, medical, aerospace / defense, and networking / telecom industries.

Lavanya Rammohan: How do you see the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider market evolving in the next 5-10 years, especially since the recovery and on track growth potential?

Jake Kulp: I see continued growth in various low cost regions in the world with a move to stabilize various positions within the United States. I see continued consolidation in the industry, such as the one we just saw announced between Benchmark Electronics and Pemstar. The EMS community is becoming better judges of their business opportunities in this global market, by taking the time to manage their risk assessments (materials and terms) and determining geographical decisions that are much more sustainable over the long term, with regards to where components are purchased as well as where end products are manufactured.

Lavanya Rammohan: What are the key challenges facing the EMS market? What is MC Assembly doing to face these issues?

Jake Kulp: I see the primary challenge for our industry being the continued globalization of business models and how we address that. There still seems to be a fair amount of overcapacity, especially in slower growth areas of the globe. The biggest long-term challenge facing the industry is the slim profit margin that is available to us versus the risk that the industry is asked to underwrite. Now here is what MC Assembly is doing in the face of these issues. For the globalization of the business, we are producing more products in our low cost center and we are working very hard to remain competitive by procuring more raw materials in various low cost regions. We are expanding our manufacturing position in Mexico and accelerating materials acquisition positions in Mexico as well as Asia. With regards to the industry issues of overcapacity, we have a controlled growth strategy and we are focused on the execution of that plan. This strategy includes both existing and new customers and thus far MC Assembly has not had to worry about underutilization as many others in the EMS industry have.

Lavanya Rammohan: Does this include overcapacity in terms of inventory as well?

Jake Kulp: It could. By my thinking, the materials issues are managed more during the up-front risk assessment actions. We are very careful to assess the financial viability of potential partners and to structure agreements to arrive at a shared risk proposition when it comes to inventory positions. By agreeing to a materials strategy and who owns the material at the various stages of the process, we are managing that aspect of our business much better then in the past. My earlier response to the overcapacity question was mainly with respect to facilities and that there is still far too much manufacturing space in the globe still not being properly utilized, and it’s very costly. But you are absolutely right with your comment about the inventory positions as they can drain EMS working capital beyond their capacity to sustain or grow as well.

Lavanya Rammohan: What are the core strengths you think EMS providers will need to develop to compete in this market?

Jake Kulp: Good question! I think its focus on service, adding higher levels of value to the relationships, closer ties to our supply chain partners and in our case moving to higher levels of integration.

Lavanya Rammohan: When you said adding higher levels of value, you mean in terms of flexibility, innovation?

Jake Kulp: If I tied this question to the attributes that differentiate MC Assembly from our competition, our area of adding value is flexibility, more efficient management of our customers AVLs and BOMs, supporting logistics solutions such as direct fulfillment and moving into higher levels of integration for our customers.

Lavanya Rammohan: Talking on same line, there has been a lot of interest and discussion between EMS and ODM mixing business models. How important do you think design capabilities are for EMS providers or will it just be a complementing factor for them?

Jake Kulp: It has always been my belief that OEMs should spend less and less of their fixed cost in trying to excel in manufacturing and spend more of their time and money on engineering, sales and marketing. Since the ODM’s are looking more and more like the EMS companies, it seems pretty safe to group us all together. The most common EMS engineering offerings of design for manufacturing, design for test and design for supply chain remain important, but, I am not convinced we will see an enormous amount of revenue being generated by pure play engineering service providers. As compared to the revenue generated by building a product, it feels like engineering revenue will remain a much smaller percentage of the overall revenue for some time to come. Selling engineering services is more transactional in nature then repeatable manufacturing orders. You need to have a continuous stream of engineering opportunities from which to bid and service, I do not believe in the majority of business transactions that engineering services is a major differentiator anymore. Everyone seems to have some level of engineering services. I believe that the OEMs should fight to keep their intellectual engineering property, and their final design expertise.

Lavanya Rammohan: What do you consider are your key business differentiators and how have they given you an edge over your competition?

Jake Kulp: First and foremost, the way we service our customer base. MC Assembly is well known for our customer focus and this permeates throughout our entire organization. We tend to take care of our customers and they stay with us for a very long period of time. If we loose a customer- it seems to be for reasons beyond our current control, such as migrating closer to their end customer base and wanting a manufacturing presence in an area of the world we may not currently have brick and motor in. The next is our RF capability. We have a very strong RF capability both from a technician as well as for test, which is very unique to find in mid tier EMS providers. MC Assembly is a scalable EMS provider. We like to say that we have tier 1 manufacturing capabilities with a mid tier customer focus.

Lavanya Rammohan: MC Assembly does not have manufacturing sites in low cost Asian or Eastern European regions. So what has provided the company the edge over EMS providers who do have low cost manufacturing sites in these regions?

Jake Kulp: Well the first thing is that we are not spending our time pursuing customers who have defined their outsourcing requirements as Asian manufacturing. The second thing is that we are procuring a larger portion of fabricated products- such as bare boards, cable assemblies, sheet metal, and plastics from lower cost regions where you can really get an advantage of labor savings. All of these decisions are weighed against the total cost of acquisition and in some cases, even though the price may be a little higher, it still makes sense to procure these same products in the US. Lower prices can quickly dissolve when faced with the added risks and logistics costs when conducting business in Asia.

Lavanya Rammohan: What have been some of the key initiatives the company has undertaken this year?

Jake Kulp: We have been aggressively re-branding and re-marketing our company. There has been a lot of time and money spent on restarting the demand creation efforts as well. Internally we have ratcheted up our Lean Manufacturing initiatives this past year. We are also moving to customer or technology specific manufacturing cells in our plants and already see the operational benefits of such moves. From our NPI and business offices, we have instituted a much more defined and repeatable focus on the front-end of the new customer introduction process, including the always-interesting discussions of terms and conditions.

Lavanya Rammohan: What are some of the growth strategies that your company has implemented to foray into untapped markets and expanded client base?

Jake Kulp: This may not sound very exiting because while we continue to upgrade our capital equipment and investments for better manufacturing and test tools, I believe it is simply back to the basics of selling our services and managing the business relationships. Another way to say this is that we are focusing on blocking and tackling of business management. Specifically, we are re-motivating and investing in the existing reps we have throughout the country, bringing on new reps to fill in gaps we might have geographically and maintaining a very strong, upfront investment of time to qualify each potential customer for “fit”. We are not trying to pound square pegs into round holes.

Lavanya Rammohan: What kind of growth platform do you envisage for MC Assembly over the coming years? Is MC Assembly planning to penetrate new markets both geographically or vertical industries?

Jake Kulp: No, as far as the geographical expansion is concerned, we are going to remain very heavily focused domestically and in Mexico with our current manufacturing footprint. We are going to be maniacally focused on the industries I laid out to you earlier and we are going to go through the necessary changes to be certain that we are able to support a higher level of value such as direct fulfillment, logistics support, higher levels of integration, and more complex box builds for the customers we are serving.

For the growth platform question, MC Assembly, even through the significant downturn the industry experienced back in 2000-2001, has never had a down year. In the last ten years we have maintained steady year over year revenue growth. It is our desire to continue in a steady growth mode as opposed to the meteoric kind of rises and falls the EMS business has experienced in the past. That plan will be executed by our ability to keep and grow the existing customer base we have and methodically and carefully bring in new, targeted customers each year

Thank you very much for your time!

This article originally appeared here.

MC Assembly COO Luis Ramirez has a background in global operations and supply chain management with more than 18 years of electronics industry experience. He has a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the University of Puerto Rico; a master’s degree in engineering management from the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico; and a master’s in business administration from the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

“We are honored and excited to have Luis join MC Assembly,” said George Moore, CEO and president. “As a part of our executive team, Luis will play a major role in the continued acceleration of our growth and on delivering outstanding results to our customers.”

MC Assembly is a mid-tier electronic manufacturing services provider.

A few questions with MC Assembly COO Luis Ramirez:

Can you tell us, in layman’s terms, what services and products MC Assembly provides? “What we are bringing to our customers is the ability to design a device. Let’s say a complex electronic device, perhaps used in the healthcare industry for blood testing or in the aerospace industry to help with navigational systems, we put together the engineering and components to do the job.”

What’s behind the surge in MC Assembly’s success? “The global economy is causing a lot of changes in the way things are operating. What we’re seeing is a shift in mentalities. Part of the concern of the customer is to minimize the time it takes the goods to get to the market. Second, they want to minimize their cash tied to inventory on a boat or overseas. And third, the intellectual property — the secrets, the trades, the things that make the product special — they want to keep control of that. The only way they can do that is manufacturing closer to consumption versus manufacturing offshore. That adds a lot of value in the services MC Assembly provides. The markets that are growing in the U.S. will require local service, quick delivery and local support and that’s a value we can provide to all these customers.”

Is your customer base primarily domestic or foreign? “For the most part, we serve customers that are based in the Americas.”

Tell us about your factory floor. Is it assembly-line style or are workers building devices from beginning to end? “If you looked at the building from 10,000 feet, you would see a city of cells. These are manufacturing cells that make the components. All of them are focused on different stages of manufacturing. Some are automated and some require the hands of skilled personnel, all working in unison to provide the parts. It is a process that flows, but as you go from stage to stage it may be a combination of equipment or people, or equipment and people.

Do you think bringing more manufacturing companies into Brevard County makes sense? “From my perspective — I’m an operations guy — I always see that operations or manufacturing can provide a small engine not only to employees, but to the community. I think that any type of manufacturing industry that could be attracted to this area could be a good thing.”

You have quite a background working in manufacturing. What keeps you interested? “Anybody in this industry, manufacturing in general, is a special breed. Manufacturing these days is a tough industry. There are (things) that have impacted manufacturing in recent years. I have traveled all over the world as part of my different roles. Most of that has been opening plants in China or improving plants around the world. Very exciting, and I have enjoyed my experiences, but I am happy to be able to help this local organization that is employing Americans and I am very excited about that. I am extremely excited about the opportunity to apply all the things I have learned closer to home, closer to the community.”

What do you find challenging about manufacturing? “It’s a balancing act. Complying with customers, manufacturing costs, targets, every day is a challenge. That’s why, as I said, you need to be a special breed. Every day there is an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to fix a problem, an opportunity to learn. It’s a great feeling, after a hard working day, to be able to reach your goals and congratulate your team. It’s a great feeling and it motivates you to keep going.”

Mr. Ramirez has an extensive background in global operations and supply chain management. He brings to MC Assembly over 18 years of electronics industry experience, including management positions with Cooper Bussman; Laird Technologies; Thomas & Betts; and Cutler Hammer.

Mr. Ramirez received his Bachelors of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico; his Masters in Engineering Management from the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico; and his Masters in Business Administration from the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

“We are honored and excited to have Luis join MC Assembly,” said George Moore, CEO and President. “As a part of our executive team Luis will play a major role in the continued acceleration of our growth and on delivering outstanding results to our customers.”

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Palm Bay, Florida with operations in Winchester, Massachusetts; Palm Bay, Florida; and Zacatecas, Mexico; is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies; PCB DFM and DFT engineering; in-circuit, functional and environmental testing; full box-build; and direct order fulfillment.

Contact: Jake Kulp. VP of Business Development, 321-409-4774,  jkulp@mcati.com

Given Brevard’s traditional economic strengths, it might raise a few eyebrows to know what sector actually created hundreds of jobs amid the thousands that were lost.

Manufacturing.

While jobs elsewhere in the economy have vanished, manufacturing jobs in Brevard County have grown in the past 15 months, and industry experts expect that growth to continue.

Manufacturing added about 300 jobs since January 2011, even as the total number of jobs fell by nearly 5,000 over that time.

The national uptick has been even stronger. Following 12 straight years of decline, U.S. manufacturers added 109,000 workers to their payrolls in 2010 and another 237,000 in 2011.

Economists say the increase doesn’t necessarily signal the next golden age of manufacturing but is nonetheless evidence of an important trend. After years of increasing manufacturing losses to China, U.S. manufacturers are taking on the competition and jobs are coming home.

“That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,”  said Sean Snaith director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness. “Manufacturing has certainly been a sector of the economy that’s been under siege for some time. But the sector has become much stronger.”

In addition to finding new ways to compete, manufacturers have benefited from rising labor and transportation costs in China. Additionally, skilled aerospace workers from the space industry are available to move into manufacturing jobs, which can help attract businesses.

“Brevard will be strong,” Snaith said. “Average wages will be high in manufacturing.”

Making the right product

U.S. manufacturing companies have targeted niche products that are cheaper to make domestically. That has led to some companies even withdrawing from manufacturing in China for fear that their intellectual property and design secrets will be copied.

‘It just means there is more and more opportunity,” George Moore, president and CEO and president of MC Assembly in Palm Bay, said.

Since December 2010, MC Assembly has hired 384 workers, bringing its workforce to about 1,050 in Palm Bay. Some $10 million was invested in its 230,000 square foot plant on Kirby Circle. With skilled technicians operating robotic machines around the clock, MC Assembly draws from an inventory of 20,000 different kinds of electronic components to create hundreds of electronic circuit boards, components and devices.

By purchasing millions of dollars worth of electronic parts, many of which come from Central Florida companies, the company creates jobs for hundreds of additional workers. “There’s a ripple effect,” Moore said.

During the coming year, electronic industry analysts expect manufacturing to grow in the U.S. and Europe, while it decreases in Asia. Brevard County will be part of, and likely benefit from that shift. “In the next five years, we see the company growing,” Moore said.

Other manufacturers that are growing in Brevard include Arnott Inc., which makes air suspension systems, Mainstream Engineering, which makes a variety of high tech products; AAR, which refurbishes aircraft; Lighting Science, which creates LED lighting systems; and Embraer an aircraft maker.

MC Assembly’s manufacturing operations in Mexico also will grow, but that will help employment in Brevard because the factory in Mexico is overseen and supplied by employees in Palm Bay.

Tension in the Middle East has caused fuel prices to rise. But rising fuel prices, which often slows consumer spending, can help U.S. manufacturers, who benefit when companies seek to avoid transportation costs by moving operations to the U.S. to avoid overseas shipping costs. “It helps us,” Moore said. “That boat costs you more and more to operate.”

Decline halted

The number of manufacturing jobs in Brevard fell by almost a third in the last 20 years. However, the decline in manufacturing jobs stopped in January 2011. More recently, nearly 1,000 manufacturing jobs were posted online for Brevard County during the past 90 days, according to Brevard Workforce.

With Brevard’s connection to the space industry, manufacturing industry jobs could be connected to innovative technologies. Lighting Sciences Group, a pioneer in the field of light emitting diode bulbs, expects to hire 10 to 15 percent more employees this year. But increases in Satellite Beach, where about 250 of its 1,600 worldwide employees work, won’t be manufacturing jobs.

As its global manufacturing operations grow, research and development employees will be hired in Brevard, where new LED lighting products are created and support for global manufacturing operations is coordinated.

The company manufactured 4.5 million LED bulbs last year, the most in North America.  It employs more than 50 research scientist and engineers with Ph.Ds or master’s degrees.

“A lot of the jobs we’re adding these days, particularly at the Satellite Beach site, are falling into the engineering, research and design realm,” company spokesman Andy Beck said.

Palm Bay – George Moore strolled through the expensive production room at MC Assembly late last month.

The 55-year old Moore, who joined the contract manufacturer in 2005 and became its chief executive officer two years later, didn’t necessarily look like a trendsetter in his khaki slacks and blue dress shirt. But many in Brevard County’s economic development community hope he is one.

Or at least a weather vane.

In the past 18 months, Moore has helped increase business for MC Assembly, which in turn has allowed him to hire 100 more workers, boosting the workforce to about 800.  And he hopes the company’s recently obtained AS 9100 certification will generate more work and the need for even more workers.

“We’re forecasting significant growth in 2012,” Moore said of his operation, which mostly makes electronic components for a variety of larger customers.

Growth in manufacturing employment has been sporadic and not enough to stem an overall decline. Over the past 20-plus years, in fact, the number of manufacturing jobs has fallen from more than 30,000 to 20,400 according to the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation. That’s the lowest it’s been since 1991.

But the benefits jobs in some areas of manufacturing bring to a community make creating them a high priority.

“Typically, high-tech manufacturing jobs offer above-average wages, which generally results in more dollars flowing into the economy,” said Linda Weatherman, president and chief executive officer of the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast.  “As discretionary income and the tax base grows, area businesses benefit from increased consumer spending and more dollars are available for essential services, leading to an overall improved quality of life for the community.”

MC Assembly has extensive experience working with leading aerospace and defense companies to provide superior quality products supported by high-technology inspection tools, robust quality systems, ITAR certification and IPC class 3 soldering capabilities. In addition, MC Assembly maintains the very specialized FAA: PMA Certification for both original equipment and depot/repair services in the Palm Bay facility.

“We maintain a strategic commitment to our country’s leading aerospace and defense companies,” said George Moore, Chief Executive Officer and President of MC Assembly. “Achieving AS9100 certification further validates our promise to deliver the highest quality products and services to our customers. It also reaffirms our position as the aerospace and defense industry’s lowest risk choice as an OEMs manufacturing partner.”

About MC Assembly MC Assembly (www.mcati.com), based in Palm Bay, FL with operations in Winchester, Massachusetts, Palm Bay, Florida and Zacatecas, Mexico, is a national leader in the contract manufacturing arena with annual revenues of approximately $200 million. It provides turnkey solutions to original equipment manufacturers and focuses on assembly of medium volume, medium mix printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) and box builds. MC Assembly’s capabilities include surface mount and pin-through-hole interconnection technologies, PCB DFM and DFT engineering, in-circuit, functional and environmental testing, full box-build and direct order fulfillment. Cyprium Partners, a private equity firm focused primarily on non-control investments, acquired majority ownership of MC Assembly in 2007.

Working along these lines, Florida-based MC Assembly is a mid-tier EMS provider which adopts a disciplined business model to tackle the challenges in the EMS industry efficiently.

With state-of-the-art production facilities in the USA and Mexico, the key business differentiators of MC Assembly include its customer-focused approach (which is evident from the long-term relationships with its customers, many of which have been doing business for 5 to 10 years) to selecting and servicing clients, RF (radio frequency) manufacturing and test capability.

The core competencies of the company are directed at delivering superior services with higher levels of value to customer relationships, fostering closer ties to their supply chain partners as well as manufacturing and testing higher levels of systems integration.

MC Assembly’s services include design for test and design for manufacturing engineering support services, pin through-hole and surface mount PCB assemblies, complex subassemblies, complete box builds, direct fulfillment and warranty/repair services. These services are directed at their targeted markets including the industrial, medical, A&D (aerospace and defense), networking and telecommunication industries.

Jake Kulp, vice president of sales and marketing at MC Assembly told spoke with Technical Insights regarding the company’s manufacturing processes for selective soldering. MC Assembly has employed numerous ERSA Versaflow selective soldering machines for over 6 years. The fountain-type selective soldering machines enables MC Assembly to achieve focused selective soldering without masking or booting (protecting) the sensitive SMT components or areas on the PCB. The ERSA machines are provided with cameras to visually monitor the soldering process. According to Kulp, the preheat function and the control/automation level offered by the fountaintype selective soldering machines are extremely beneficial in many applications that normally would require very time consuming hand operations.

Due to the fact that MC Assembly is involved in industries such as industrial, medical and aerospace/defense which utilize boards with heavy ground plans, it is vital that the selective soldering machines be utilized to minimize secondary operations and have a minimum amount of human touch.

Kulp indicated that MC Assembly employs selective soldering technology for mixed media type PCBs, boards with a heavy ground plane (the preheat functionality of selective soldering is helpful for such type of boards) and boards where hand soldering would prove very difficult due to component placement and accessibility to place a soldering iron in the correct spot to ensure a good solder joint. Kulp believes that the selective soldering technology is not driven by specific end-user markets as much as it is dependent on the technology required for the board design, the power requirement of the application, and the capabilities of the board designers.

MC Assembly has also incorporated selective soldering technology into its wave soldering process. MC Assembly’s use of precision wave pallets that incorporate exotic metals and hold-downs enables the company to expand the capabilities of traditional wave soldering to avoid secondary hand operations.

Kulp also mentioned that selective soldering technology is beneficial over hand soldering with regards to higher volume lot size manufacturing and for surge capacity, with greater repeatability and quality since secondary operations are removed.

MC Assembly still employs a large degree of hand soldering for different applications as volumes may not warrant other options or the board design may not have enough secondary operations that would lend itself to automation or precision wave pallets. In other cases where some rework may be required, boards which have been selectively soldered must be hand soldered as hand soldering is faster and more cost effective. In many instances, volume seems to be a major restraint to automate and many of MC Assembly’s customers are asking for smaller lot size deliveries.

Additionally, as the company grows in the aerospace and defense marketplace, the very small and spotty board requirements make hand soldering the only good option to support their customer needs.

MC Assembly has dedicated automated selective soldering machines for leadfree and leaded soldering. The same machine could be configured for either lead or for lead-free solder, but solder bath conversions can be a long process. MC Assembly manages these decisions by paying close attention to the order horizon and balancing its capital equipment needs against its customer’s firm demands. While some EMS companies publicize running both lead and lead free soldering in the same machine suggesting a quick and easy change over process, MC Assembly prefers to manage capacity with a longer view towards its customers needs.

Details: Jake Kulp, VP of Sales & Marketing, MC Assembly, 2755 Kirby Circle, Palm Bay, FL 32905. Phone: 321-253-0541; Ext 3774. E-mail: jkulp@mcati.com. URL: http://www.mcati.com/

The repair module is ideal for electronic manufacturers that are seeking to reduce warranty costs and improve product performance across the entire lifecycle. It is particularly suited for OEMs with high volumes of products under warranty that are failing, those being faced with product recalls, those with large bone piles/scrap, or those that want insurance against any type of product failure or recall in industries including telecommunications, networking, medical devices, computers and peripherals. For example, a computer manufacturer that continues to receive like complaints can quickly identify if a defect is caused by the software running on the computer or a particular device that is failing in the computer. In the situation where a defective device is identified, the manufacturer can quickly identify where the product was developed, specifically which manufacturing center and on which line, as well as who was the supplier of the particular product component that failed. The module also enables OEMs to easily identify which repairs are most effective, and it gives recommendations to repair centers as to which repairs to try first, based on historical trends.

“Repair knowledge can be equated with tribal knowledge in that is often unwritten information that is not commonly shared with others within an organization. Yet, for enhanced productivity, this information needs to be known and analyzed by others in the supply network so that they can produce quality products,” said Nader Fathi, president and CEO of SigmaQuest. “With the introduction of SigmaSure 6.0 and Repair Insight, we are providing optimal approaches for OEMs, suppliers and their outsourced partners to collaborate in real time to improve their product quality and lower warranty costs, as they can all access the same information, regardless of geographic location or IT infrastructure. Moreover, our offering our Software as a Service – OnDemand, makes it is easier to adopt as users can access data anytime and anywhere as well as get up to speed quicker with lower implementation costs.”

The repair module in some ways can be equated with Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) systems. However, it offers a substantial value add in that the repair data can be correlated along with other product development, test and quality information so that the exact product defect can be quickly identified. Also, it captures granular parametric data for each device as opposed to just capturing overview summary data. Of further note, Repair Insight is compatible with other software. For example, ART, (Agilent Repair Tool) data can also be uploaded into Repair Insight. The failure analysis and corrective action information from Repair Insight is captured via a form and a web service application programming interface (API) and displayed via user-friendly dashboards.

SigmaSure 6.0 Provides Enhanced Collaboration Features Beyond Repair Insight, the newly released SigmaSure 6.0 software features several significant upgrades. Most notably, the company is now offering group dashboards so that groups of users can add to and share their dashboard information. The information can also be exported into PDF or executable files so data can be shared with outside teams and organizations that may not have access to SigmaSure or the particular dashboard being viewed. Further, the SigmaSure Alerts System now sends alerts via email so users don’t need to be logged onto the dashboard to see if there is a warning. The software provides alerts on product, process, parametric, station and fixture type of issues. Example of such events that could trigger such alerts are Marginal Measurements and Escapes–product defects that frequently fail to be detected at the manufacturing test stage and get delivered to the customer.

Jake Kulp, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at MC Assembly, a national leader in the contract manufacturing industry noted, “SigmaQuest’s Repair Insight fills an important link in the product quality tracking and management process. Now, it will be even easier to pinpoint the exact cause of a product failure and ensure that our repair teams are making the appropriate fixes. Moreover, it ties in well with our existing portfolio of SigmaQuest software that enable us to track the quality of our products from the moment they enter manufacturing and throughout their lifecycles.”

Pricing and Availability SigmaSure 6.0 with Repair Insight as an optional module is available today as an OnDemand product starting at a U.S. list price of $8,500 per month.

About SigmaQuest SigmaQuest Inc. is an OnDemand software company whose solutions provide unprecedented insight and actionable information to ensure product and process integrity, by collecting, controlling and analyzing quality data throughout the product lifecycle. Its solutions enable global enterprises, such as OEMs that design, manufacture and service a broad array of products containing electronic components, to help deliver lower warranty costs, improve product quality and increase customer satisfaction. SigmaQuest’s suite of products consists of Manufacturing and Test Insight, Supplier Quality Insight and RMA Insight, all of which are offered in an OnDemand, real-time environment. The company’s market-changing approach has been recognized in Managing Automation’s Top Ten Companies to Watch, Manufacturing Business Technology’s Top 40 Emerging Vendors, and Test & Measurement World’s “Best in Test” awards.

Jake Kulp – Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Lavanya: Can you provide a brief introduction about MC Assembly and the products/services it offers?

Jake Kulp: MC Assembly is a leading mid tier electronics manufacturing service provider with state of the art production facilities in the United States and Mexico. We offer a wide range of manufacturing, test and engineering support services across a broad market spectrum. Our service offerings include front-end concurrent design (DFX) services; plated through-hole and surface mount printed circuit board assemblies, complex sub-assemblies, complete box builds and warranty / repair services.

Our market place focus is centered on the industrial, medical, aerospace / defense, and networking / telecom industries.

Lavanya: How do you see the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider market evolving in the next 5-10 years, especially since the recovery and on track growth potential?

Jake Kulp: I see continued growth in various low cost regions in the world with a move to stabilize various positions within the United States. I see continued consolidation in the industry, such as the one we just saw announced between Benchmark Electronics and Pemstar. The EMS community is becoming better judges of their business opportunities in this global market, by taking the time to manage their risk assessments (materials and terms) and determining geographical decisions that are much more sustainable over the long term, with regards to where components are purchased as well as where end products are manufactured.

The MC Assembly Challenge From offering printed circuit board assembly to complex box build/integration, MC Assembly supports many diverse customers who have their own specific needs and requirements. It is critical the MC Assembly offer strong chain planning, monitoring and response capabilities throughout its high velocity environment.

“In 2004 we recognized the need to implement a solution that could enable us to respond to changes in real-time within our global supply chain. Specifically, it was essential that the tool provide us with a world-class ATP (Available to Promise) capabilities and help us to mitigate inventory liability,” explains Tom Rossi, vice president of procurement and materials for MC Assembly.

The RapidResponse Advantage “Kinaxis RapidResponse provides us with that exact tool,” says Rossi “RapidResponse has allowed us to perform complex, real-time ATP simulations and quickly present our customers with comprehensive change analysis. Also, it provided the flexibility to communicate immediate changes to our global supply chain partners. These central processes are a must in order for us to successfully manage over 900 end items and over 20,000 different components in a highly dynamic and fast-paced environment.”

By using RapidResponse MC Assembly’s buyers and planners have been able to effectively and efficiently manage the daily changes in supply and demand. More informed and accurate decisions have led to proactive shop floor scheduling which has lowered cost and minimized waste.

MC Assembly also chose to leverage RapidResponse’s platform to feed its B2B process, whereby suppliers pull demand forecasts and provide automated feedback.  Via intranet scripting created by MC Assembly developers, these updates roll straight into their FourthShift MRP system without human intervention when all appropriate criteria are met without exception.

MC Assembly recognizes that inventory and liability management are paramount for both theirs and their customer’s profitability. Monitoring and managing performance in this regard has improved significantly using RapidResponse. “Inventory turns have doubled and our excess/obsolete inventory is at an all-time low,” states Rossi. “Our customers feel secure in knowing that we are managing the supply chain and not letting it manage us!”

RapidResponse also permitted MC Assembly to develop a multi-site planning environment. ‘We have two manufacturing facilities that operate from one ERP system which did not segregate supply and demand efficiently. RapidResponse’s multi-site solution allowed us to solve this important business issue,” adds Rossi. “It has added value and efficiency to our use of the information contained in our MRP system.” Overall, RapidResponse has become integral to daily operations and is used to solve multiple business problems. “The global electronics marketplace is a complex, dynamic and fluid environment.” closes Rossi. “MC Assembly has made a prudent investment for itself and its customers by adopting RapidResponse.”