Return to BTJ Online

Weathering the Storm
MC Assembly credits vision and good timing for consistent revenue gains

by Anne Straub
Brevard Technical Journal

Tom Wienckoski, president of MC Assembly, right, looks on as James Echols works on the Universal GSM pick and place at the Palm Bay company's printed circuit board assemblies facility. Photo by Craig Rubadoux, © 2003.

A company needs strong vision and talent to survive. But good timing and a little luck don’t hurt, either.

MC Assembly acknowledges all those components coming together to make the contract manufacturer the $150 million company it is today.

President and CEO Tom Wienckoski started the Melbourne firm with two others in 1984. He had been working for a circuit board manufacturer and saw a business opportunity: His employer was sending out its bare boards for testing, so Wienckoski started a testing business. He grabbed that work and soon started winning other testing business.

After a couple years, the company expanded and began offering fixturing services in order to use automated test equipment and offer more extensive electrical testing.

MC Assembly leased a universal grid tester and built the business until a change in the market made further expansion unlikely. The cost of test equipment dropped to the point that the market became saturated with companies that offered automated testing.

“It was easy to get into it, and every town had one,” Wienckoski said. Intent on growth, the company switched its focus to contract manufacturing, now its sole business.

That was the vision. The timing came with the simultaneous rise of the industry in the 1980s.

IBM is credited with kicking off the boom in contract manufacturing, or the outsourcing of manufacturing processes. Rather than make a product itself, a company might contract with another firm to perform all or part of the production. The idea is to let the contract manufacturer invest in production equipment, so the company that designs and markets the product – known as an original equipment manufacturer -- can instead use money for research and development or marketing. Those areas, and not the manufacturing process, are where a company can add value to its product.

Wienckoski gestured to an assembly line on the floor of the company’s Palm Bay location, noting that each line represents about a $1.5 million investment. “Why would I want to spend $1.5 million on that?” he said, speaking as a hypothetical OEM. “Everybody is outsourcing now.”

That’s not much of an exaggeration. According to a 2001 survey by Technology Forecasters Inc., 89 percent of OEMs were then outsourcing. Of those who weren’t outsourcing, 60 percent indicated they were planning to start soon.

Katherine Dakling, a quality control inspector for MC Assembly, examines a circuit board. Photo by Craig Rubadoux, © 2003.

MC Assembly looks for medium volume jobs that need very high-tech services. About two-thirds of its business is split between the telecommunications and medical fields. Industrial manufacturing and gaming make up the rest.

The company makes boards for products ranging from vital signs monitors for GE Medical, to Speed Pass gas pumps for Mobil, to slot machines for gaming company IGT.

“They’re a good supplier for us,” IGT spokesman Rick Sorensen said of MC Assembly. “They are competitive, responsive and deliver a quality product.”

MC Assembly for the most part provides printed circuit board assemblies. In some cases, it will build an entire system for a company, including the sheet metal and plastic extrusions. Other jobs involve packaging the product, including packing the owner’s manual and warranty card and sending it to the customer’s customer.

“Some of our customers don’t see their product,” Wienckoski said.

MC Assembly started its contract manufacturing services with a bench of workers putting boards together by hand. Its first capital investment was a wave solder machine, which solders an entire board in one sweep over 500 degree molten solder.

Today, the system is extremely automated with hand assembly reserved for boards that need pieces that can’t be assembled by machine. Wienckoski estimates the company has a $28 million capital investment in equipment that performs functions including placing 12 parts per second on a board and visually inspecting boards for correct placement. “We used to have someone at the end of the bench inspect every board through a scope,” Wienckoski said.

Growth wasn’t without its bumps. The industry took a beating from 1999 to 2001, when telecommunications companies began to suffer. MC Assembly lost some business in that sector, but has replaced it, Wienckoski said.

Other contract manufacturers went bankrupt when they were stuck with large inventories and their struggling customers called and told them to stop shipping product. MC Assembly got hit with the same inventory problem, but stayed in business, Wienckoski said, because of the strength of its workforce and its lack of long-term debt.

Some would call that sound management; Wienckoski allows for some good fortune. “I think you have to have a little luck,” he said.

The company has been profitable for the past five years and has shown revenue growth every year. Sales have jumped from $117 million to $150 million this year, and Wienckoski forecasts $190 million for next year.

The company, which employs 815 people, operates three locations and plans to build another 80,000-square-foot facility in Palm Bay.

For more information, see www.mcati.com.