Keytronic

OFFERING A UNIQUE BLEND OF HIGH CALIBER DESIGN, ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING SERVICES

KEYTRONIC

T

he manufacturing industry is in a state of flux.

With trade tariffs, COVID19 and new technology all playing a prominent role in the sector over the past few years, it has meant that operating with an agile and resilient approach is essential in order to navigate such disruption.

For Craig Gates, President and CEO of Keytronic, he acknowledges how much the industry has changed over the past decade.

“It’s very interesting times, particularly in terms of what is going on with China and the rest of the world as well as the coronavirus. It’s a pretty unsettled time in comparison to the last 10-15 years with big changes happening all the time.”

Indeed, COVID-19 hit the manufacturing industry hard, among many other sectors, and a government shutdown meant Keytronic had to be agile and adapt.

“Now, we’re running all of our office facilities at one third or less capacity and we’ve actually discovered that working remotely has worked out very well,” he reflects.

“In terms of the COVID impact on the factory, we had a temporary complete government mandated shutdown of all facilities in Juarez, including ours, which was very costly for the business. In terms of our employees, we’ve had almost zero transmissions of the disease inside the factory and I’m very proud of the work that has been done to ensure our factory is safe.”

Keytronic offers a unique mixture of high caliber design, engineering and manufacturing services. Its flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs and ability to provide a comprehensive range of testing services have made Keytronic a leader in the highly-competitive global design and manufacturing services marketplace.

In addition to its electronics, metals and assembly capabilities, the organization is one of North America’s largest precision injection molding 2 | North America Outlook issue 02

Mitigating Disruption in Manufacturing Despite global disruption, Craig Gates, President and CEO of Keytronic, reflects on the evolution of the manufacturing industry over the past decade Writer: Sean Galea-Pace | Project Manager: David Knott

MANUFACTURING

China Precision Tooling

15 Years in the industry

Zhuhai CPT Precision Mold Co, LTD. is a one-stop solution provider focusing on precision plastic injection molds, precision die casting molds, precision plastic parts MP and post-processing. It is not only a national high-tech enterprise but also one of a key enterprise about engineering technology center in Zhuhai, Guang Dong province, China. With a plant area of 16000 square meters and 160 employees.

For details, please log in our website: www.cpt-mold.com

16,000 $15M+ Square meters

Turnover

160 Employees

Vision To be the worldwide first choice precision plastic tooling and die casting tooling and corresponding parts developing and manufacturing one-stop engineering solutions provider and business partner.

Mission CPT strives to be one of the most competitive precision tooling and manufacturing turnkey engineering solution suppliers in the GuangDong area by: • Developing and effectively utilizing our employees’ potential • Enhancing our organizational capabilities; • Strengthening relations with our customers and suppliers

Plastic Precision Mold • Precision Plastic injection mold • Global level mold design philosophy and processing standard • High precision & Complex structure mold • 2K & 3K over-molding • Insert molding • End of Arm Tools Development • Gages and Fixtures

Die Casting Mold • • • • •

Precision Die casting mold Magnesium &aluminum & Zinc material Trimming mold Air tightness Die casting mould FLOW 3D/MAGMA mold flow analysis

3D printing & Rapid Prototyping • • • • •

3D printing parts 5-axis CNC machining High & low temp. environment test; Vibration test; Metal composition detection.

Plastic Parts Production • • • • • • •

Precision Injection Molding Design to Transfer Expertise Thermoplastic to Exacting Tolerances Insert Molding with Zero-Defect Quality Two-Shot Molding for a Range of Uses CPK/CMK>1.33 Post finish & Subassembly

NO,7,THE 7TH PINGXI ROAD,NANPING S&T PARK ZHUHAI,GUANGDONG.CHINA T: +86-756-3898258 M: +86-13923389458 E: david@cpt-mold.com www.cpt-mold.com

KEYTRONIC

AT A GLANCE: KEYTRONIC Having begun with just one location in 1969 as a keyboard manufacturer, Keytronic has experienced strong growth over the years and now stands as one of the leading design and manufacturing service providers within the industry today.

Keytronic has all the capabilities and skills needed to assist in all phases of the product development cycle. The firm can provide comprehensive product design and are renowned for their skills at redesign for product cost reduction.

The company’s size enables it to focus on accounts with low to medium volumes and higher flexibility requirements, while its global footprint provides the cost benefits of offshore locations normally associated with only much larger electronic manufacturing service providers.

Craig Gates, President and CEO

6 | North America Outlook issue 02

firms and is capable of molding parts in any size, volume and material including multi-material products.

Its volume requirements range from complex, custom products to highvolume standard products. Keytronic performs project management, design, documentation and artwork generation leveraging the latest software technologies to produce the highest quality products.

The company is regarded as an industry leader and excels in manufacturing precision parts for the computer, telecommunications, medical, consumer, industrial, automotive, aerospace and military industries. The firm’s capabilities include electro-mechanical, electrical, mechanical and boxbuild assembly by highly skilled and trained employees who participate in certification programs to ensure errorfree assembly processes. Keytronic’s engineering and management teams are continuously improving quality processes to maintain the highest levels of performance.

Gates joined the company in 1994 and held a number of executive management positions before stepping into his current role in 2009.

With such considerable experience under his belt, Gates believes there are three key factors which sets his organization apart from competitors.

“Keytronic is unique in a number of ways. Number one is our breadth of locations, vertical integration and services that we offer in comparison to our size,” he explains.

“The second is our unique approach to the entire management structure.

We’ve been operating in Mexico for over 40 years, and our structure is designed to take advantage of that experience.

“We operate our facilities in China, Mexico and Vietnam as cost centers rather than profit centers, with centralized command and control out of Spokane. This means they’re not distracted by trying to be a profit

Display Logic Display Logic is a flexible and technologically advanced LCD and Touch Manufacturer and a display solution provider. We hold patents in LCD Optical Bonding and have many designs around LCD and Touch interfacing and assembly.

Our primary strength is developing specific solutions that exactly match customer needs rather than expecting the customer to change their designs to accommodate what we have available.

Additionally, our products are also developed with the supply chain in mind. Our years of experience in the LCD market has guided our principles when sourcing components to ensure the longest product availability and continuous support over the years and the lowest cost to extend product life.

When engaging with Keytronic our challenge had to been to assist in continued support of a product that incorporated an LCD that had been recently EOL’d by a major manufacturer. We designed a form, fit and functional replacement that had the same or superior specs to the original and allowed the continuance of the end customers product with no changes to the product or assembly at a time when the lack of a replacement would have been disastrous to the end customers business.

www.displaylogic.com

Standard Displays from1” to 65” Custom Displays to match any requirement Our custom options will save you money Drop-in and Best Fit Replacements for any LCD Extended Product Life Sunlight Readable LCDs All support and interface Electronics Fully Enclosed and Sub-assemblies

www.displaylogic.com sales@displaylogic.com 631-406-1922

KEYTRONIC

Diprenta A company dedicated: To high volume offset printing, specialises in manual and instructional printing, industrial label printing and professional graphic design.

With more than 20 years of experience serving the maquiladora industry located in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico: World-class manufacturing center and binational metropolis, for its direct access to the United States.

We are an export company, with permission from the the Secretariat of Economy to exempt VAT (Value Added Tax) on final export products, for better operation and logistics.

We have offices in El Paso, Texas.

www.diprenta.com

Keytronic’s assembly line

center and competing with other sites that are owned by Keytronic.

This allows our customers to get their products built in two or more of our locations without playing referee, and allows a much easier interface as our customers don’t have to learn different languages.

“Thirdly, we have a long history of taking on projects that have a unique or uncommon process that we develop and learn how to implement and manage. Some of our biggest customers have products that no one else could make without spending a year or two learning their manufacturing process. We like products that have a strange process that requires some engineering or development in order to get them into mass production.”

With new technology’s influence on the manufacturing space showing no signs of slowing, Gates believes that manufacturers take new innovations for granted.

8 | North America Outlook issue 02

“If you even go back 10 years ago, so much has changed,” he explains. “Our ability to transfer documentation, build prototypes and do business around the world has completely transformed.

It’s an overwhelming change that you don’t notice day to day and only when you look back.”

The organization focuses on customer communication and building robust supply base relationships. Its extensive range of assembly services provides customers with a complete manufacturing solution. From the best-in-class facilities to engineer supported trained employees and processes, the assembly results in superior manufactured products.

Keytronic places great emphasis on its supply chain and Gates affirms that his company’s strategic partners have been a key ingredient to success over the years.

“We believe that supply chain is a large percentage of the value that we add to our customers,” he says.

MANUFACTURING

Keytronic’s SMT production line

KEYTRONIC

The firm’s capabilities include electro-mechanical, electrical, mechanical and box-build assembly by highly skilled and trained employees “If there’s a problem with production, it is almost always based on parts, not a process that we control in the factory. It is usually based on lead times and forecasts that have changed.

We’ve had a massive focus for years on supply chain and a number of our suppliers are on first name basis.

“We have a two-tiered approach, a procurement team here, that does a lot of the supplier qualification and an IPO in our Shanghai plant that does a lot of our sourcing. We have a number of long-lasting partnerships that we’ve had for years.”

With talent management a key pillar to Gates’ leadership at Keytronic, he values the importance of staff retention and goes out of his way to 10 | North America Outlook issue 02

Metal shop recognize the contributions that his employees make.

“We’re in a service industry and that all comes from people,” he explains.

“We are very proud of the longevity of our workforce and we have some employees that have worked for us for over 40 years. There are people in one of our plants that I hired in 1983

In addition to its electronics, metals and assembly capabilities, the organization is one of North America’s largest precision injection molding firms

Keytronic’s molding area

MANUFACTURING

Shanghai, China

Juarez, Mexico

Oakdale, Minnesota Spokane, Washington headquarters

Fayetteville, Arkansas

Corinth, Mississippi

Da Nang, Vietnam

as a 25-year-old that are still there. It’s amazing to have that experience.”

Gates believes that a key reason why employees remain committed to Keytronic is due to the diversity of products the firm works on.

“It makes it hard to get bored,” he notes. “Every day is different and exciting – there’s fresh challenges all the time. Ultimately, we all have the same end goal of wanting to make the company successful and profitable long-term.”

With the world having undergone unprecedented change and disruption, Gates believes that black swan events such as the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t hurt his business as much as it could have.

“It’s a strange situation,” he admits.

“COVID didn’t disrupt us too much because 90 percent of our business actually increased but 10 percent was absolutely gutted. Overall, the last three or four years have been a validation of our strategy which is to create a company that can deal with overconcentration in one locality.”

Tel: 509-928-8000 sales@keytronic.com www.keytronic.com

North America Outlook issue 02 | 11

KEYTRONIC 4424 N. Sullivan Road, Spokane Valley, WA 99216 Tel: 509-928-8000 sales@keytronic.com www.keytronic.com

PRODUCED BY NORTH AMERICA OUTLOOK MAGAZINE