• M-EXPO
• WHMA - Wired In
• Why Pay an M&A Fee
• Redemption Over Replacement
• Optimizing the Supply Chain
• Smart, Hungry, and Humble
• Update from Reshoring Initiative
• When in Need, Make it Yourself!
January
February
2019
Cesar-Scott
Straddling the Border with Innovative Thinking
By Joe Tito
Wiring Harness News
______________________________
C
esar-Scott, Inc. was in-
corporated in 1988, but
it wasn’t until the mid
1990’s that they began to concen-
trate on the contract manufacturing
of wire harnesses. Since that time,
they have built assemblies for the ap-
pliance, automotive, electronic and
industrial markets. Their mainstay is
the 20-26 AWG range, but they also
produce many assemblies in 12 thru
18 AWG. They are ISO 9001:2015/IS0
14001:2015 certified and build to the
IPC/WHMA-A-620 Standard.
As a somewhat regional supplier,
most of their business is in the Border-
plex between Ciudad Juárez, México
and El Paso, Texas. Many of their cus-
tomers have corporate headquarters
elsewhere, but the facilities they
supply to are within this bustling re-
gion. WHN recently interviewed the
company’s President, Gustavo Farell,
about their unique strengths and
some new avenues they are pursuing.
For many years, Cesar-Scott pro-
duced comparatively simple assem-
blies. However, as Gustavo discussed,
that has changed. “We’ve gotten away
from simple discrete wiring to more
complex harnesses, usually in the
lower to medium volume levels,”
he noted. The State of Chihuahua is
widely held as the wire harness capi-
tal of the world. In such a tough com-
petitive region, it’s easy for a competi-
tor to underbid and snap the simpler
designs away. Gustavo has therefore
steered efforts towards building high-
er level assemblies while providing
more value for his customers.
The company has also developed
a talent for quick changeovers result-
ing from smaller production quanti-
ties. As Gustavo described, “This al-
lows us to preform particularly well
when a customer has product fami-
lies of harnesses with the same con-
nectors and terminals, but with dif-
ferent configurations.”
One thing the company is par-
ticularly proud of is their ability to
design for manufacturability and as-
sembly (DFMA). They frequently con-
Board assembly in Juárez
sult with customers’ engineers in the
design stage to help ensure the prod-
uct can be assembled cost efficiently
and effectively. “That is something
I have always emphasized as key to
the contract manufacturing of wire
and cable assemblies, or any other
product for that matter,” Gustavo in-
structed. He stressed that, for mostly
liability issues, while his team is very
good at suggesting improvements to
the manufacture of products and to a
general drawing clean-up; they have
the customer sign off on any changes,
thus shying away from full-blown har-
ness design. His senior administrative
and engineering team has over 150
years of combined experience work-
ing towards this goal.
Within the past three years, Cesar-
Scott moved their corporate head-
quarters from El Paso’s Westside to
a very El Paso-centric location. They
had always manufactured in Cd.
Juárez, but remodeling a building in
an old industrial district in down-
town El Paso has opened some ad-
ditional doors. “This put us in close
proximity to the two bridges crossing
into Mexico, along with El Paso Inter-
national Airport and other important
transport locations,” Gustavo detailed.
With the addition of this facility they
now have the ability to do some wire
and cable assembly and related kit-
ting operations in the US. “This has
given us the space and flexibility to
work with customers who may not
necessarily need or want their pro-
duction to go across the border.” He
feels this strategy has been especially
important in today’s fluid trade regu-
lation environment.
_____________ Continued on page 42
Optimizing the Supply Chain
By David Panco
______________________________
C
ompetition is getting
tougher in the wire har-
ness industry. Costs are
rising, and companies are looking to
find cost saving opportunities that
can positively affect the bottom line.
Finding those costs to reduce and
eliminate are getting harder and hard-
er to find. There is one area that ev-
ery company should look at, and that
is their global supply chain. Where
does that raw material really come
from, what is the country of origin,
and are there customs duties built
into the price of the material. There
are some golden opportunities wait-
ing for those companies to find.
Globalization is creating more for-
eign content in many of the products
built today. More and more compa-
nies in the US are purchasing more
foreign origin components to build
their products. There are costs in the
supply chain that most companies
overlook, don’t pay attention to, or
think they are just the “cost of doing
business”. Sometimes, these costs
are buried in a composite number
where they are not visible to manag-
ers and executives.
These are the customs fees. Here
is a list of the most common customs
fees paid in the US.
• Customs Duties
• New tariffs added to
Customs Duties
• Merchandise Processing Fees
• Harbor Maintenance Fees
The costs that are apparent are the
customs fees (duties and tarrifs) paid
directly to US Customs and Border
Protection by a company importing
goods into the United States. The
Merchandise Processing Fee (MPF)
is paid for importing shipments into
the US and are an additional cost to a
company. This fee increased on Octo-
ber 1, 2018, and the MPF is based on
the value of the shipment (0.3464%)
_____________ Continued on page 39