INDUSTRIAL INFO-TAINMENT
Wiring Harness News NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012 1
s
• Finishing Well
i
:
e
Th su res • The Real Cost of Insufficient Testing
Is tu • How Reshoring Drives Profitability
a • Wire Wisdom - Low Voltage Cable Sheilding
e
F • Time Management and Delegation: Science or Art?
• Optimizing the High Mix/Low Volume Manufacturing Environment
JULY
AUGUST
2015
Winchester Electronics
By Fred Noer
_________________________________
f San Allen of Winchester Elec-
tronics were to give advice to
company leaders in the wiring
harness industry, he would have a sim-
ple, straightforward statement: “Find
your niche where you can survive, and
focus in on it.”
I
For Winchester, headquartered in
Norwalk, Conn., focusing on wiring har-
ness and cable assembly production has
led to a thriving corporation. It has gone
from $87 million in sales in 2009 to
$154 million in 2014. The company is
projecting growth to $170 million this
year and has a goal of $250 million by
the end of 2017.
Allen, 58, is the general manager of
the Engineered Cables Division of Win-
chester. The division has wiring harness
and cable assembly plants in Spartan-
burg, S.C. (operating as Electrical Spe-
cialty Products); Nogales, Mexico;
Penang, Malaysia; and Suzhou, China. He
is based at the Nogales facility.
Focus of a different kind was needed
when Allen joined Winchester in August
2009 as vice president of operations in
North America. As were numerous busi-
nesses during the Great Recession, the
company, which did much of its busi-
ness in telecommunications, was strug-
gling to adapt to the economic down-
turn.
At that point Winchester was a rela-
tively “new” company. That is, in 2006 it
Thru-hole secondary assembly station.
was bought from Northrop Grumman
Corp. in Falls Church, Va., by a group of
Winchester managers and Audax Group,
an investment company with offices in
Boston, New York City and Menlo Park,
Calif.
Since the managers could not raise
adequate funding on their own, they
were joined in the purchase by Audax,
which was founded in 1999 and has
more than $6 billion invested in lower-
market and middle-market companies.
Audax is led by cofounders and co-CEOs
Geoff Rehnert and Marc Wolpow, and
the staff includes 14 managing directors,
two principals, five senior VPs and nine
VPs.
Northrop Grumman owned Winches-
ter five years. It was included in the
acquisition of Litton Industries in Wood-
land Hills, Calif., by Northrop Grumman.
In 1963 Litton bought Winchester,
________________Continued on page 48
The 2015 Electrical Wire
Processing Technology Expo
By Joe Tito
Wiring Harness News
_________________________________
hen you think of Milwau-
kee, you think of beer,
baseball, Harley Davidson,
and that incredibly warm Midwestern
charm. But if your in the wire harness
industry, you should also think about the
Electrical Wire Processing Technology
Expo. Whether your an industry suppli-
er, a large tier two manufacturer, or a
small harness shop, you simply can't
miss this event. The 2015 EWPT Expo
held this past May 13th and 14th held
strong to the heritage this show has
developed in its 15 years of existence.
I’ll dig into some of the detail that prove
this point, but there is a specific metric I
W
have been tracking the past few years.
I’ll save that for last.
With over 165 exhibitors, the EWPT
Expo is the worlds largest showcase for
components, processing equipment,
design tools, testing technology, and all
the elements that function in wire and
cable harness production. The 2015
show boasted a 5% increase in atten-
dance over last year’s blockbuster num-
bers. The Expo was once again co-locat-
ed with The Electrical Manufacturing
and Coil Winding Show, exhibiting coil
winding and testing products for electri-
cal manufacturing. Also co-located for
2015 was Critical Power, an expo devot-
ed to equipment and technology for crit-
ical power and backup systems for hos-
pitals, data centers, military facilities, and
other power sensitive applications.
Since 2001, the Electrical Wire Processing Technology Expo has grown into
a comprehensive resource for the electrical wire harness, wire, and cable
processing industries.
Together, these related shows brought in
an additional 800 visitors.
Seminars
Cutting edge equipment, tools, and
support technology alone are enough to
keep folks flocking to the EWPT Expo
year after year. But the exchange of ideas
at the wide ranging seminars is every bit
as valuable. As with previous shows, the
2015 schedule offered critical learning
opportunities on industry best prac-
tices, trends, and burning issues. Here’s a
quick synopsis:
IPC/ WHMA A-620-B Update - Pre-
sented by: Donnie Hill, President and
COO of Precision Manufacturing Co &
Rick Bromm, VP Business Development
of Altex Inc. Donnie and Rick discussed
the Rev. B and reasoning behind the
updates. They stressed the importance
of our industry in becoming the “pied
piper of the A-620” to the OEM’s. They
also announced a new website (a-
620.org) dedicated to all aspects of the
specification, from purchasing options
to training information.
Conflict Minerals - Presented by:
Michael Wurzman, President/Founder of
RSJ Technical Consulting. Michael dis-
cussed some of the intricacies for
_________________Continued on page 5