In order to further its ambitions for growth, Microtronix has added substantial capacity to its facility over the past seven months, according to CEO Jason Wilford. “Microtronix has always been run as an aggressively entrepreneurial entity with substantial year-on-year growth driven predominately by the gutsy approach of ‘we can’ applied by Mike Goodyer, our owner and current chairman.
The last seven months have been no different and we have added a small arsenal of capacity to our facility.”
The company’s new placement capacity includes 10 lines amounting to 23 SMD machines. The latest addition is a Universal line to accommodate the company’s high-volume consumer electronic customers that are now manufacturing locally. “Our capacity output at the beginning of the year was 40 million placements per month; we are now forecasting our capacity at close to double that,” says Wilford.
Microtronix has invested close to R20 million in capital machinery to accommodate its clients’ demand in this financial year. In addition, it has spent over R3 million in quality-related and production support equipment such as AOI and X-ray equipment to maintain the standard of quality aligned to its substantial growth.
The company has added 63 members of staff in a seven-month period, bringing its total head count to over 300. It also managed to offer 10 experienced operators from Cape Town a home and job in Johannesburg. All told, the company currently contributes to the livelihoods of over 300 families and 1000 people, according to Wilford, and is proud to be playing its small part in the country’s job creation efforts.
Companies that supply to Microtronix will also be beneficiaries of the company’s growth, as Wilford expects a substantial rise in orders and volumes for everything from consumables to components. “Our clients will be the ones to benefit the most and this falls into 2 main categories: flexibility and capacity,” says Wilford.
“As we are currently running orders from 50 to 50 000 boards, we are able to custom design the production path, pricing and associated service to accommodate all customer levels.
Microtronix has truly become a master of all, being able to accommodate high-level, low-volume military projects to 2000 a day, consumer electronic orders.”
The decision to take these aggressive investment steps has primarily been in the interest of accommodating Microtronix’ existing customers’ requirements as they have grown, as well as to accommodate new customers. Wilford believes that “innovation and advancement are concepts that need to transcend design and be accommodated by the manufacturing equipment assembling the products.
“With components becoming smaller and smaller, designs becoming more and more complicated and compact, and the tolerances for errors becoming narrower, one must provide the correct machinery as part and parcel of the service level offered to customers. This means constant and vigorous reinvestment in machinery processes and people. The executive team at Microtronix believes that we are and will always be the market leaders in applying the ‘correct tool for the job’ – our focus is and will always be to apply an elevated level of capacity and quality controls to release our customers’ boards right, first time, every time.”
The company has also identified a need for substantially more space and is in the process of negotiating occupation of two premises in near proximity to its current location in Strijdom Park, for occupation in the next 16 months.
