continued

eepn2: What’s the significance of the ISO 9001:2000 certification? Maladra: You have to be ISO 9001 certified in order to become RoHS compliant. It’s a prerequisite. Also, from a purely business perspective, some customers who have viewed us as a wire and harness manufacturer or printed circuit board assembler will now see us for how we’re marketing our business.

 

eepn2: Do you see domestic contract manufacturers doing anything differently now to expand or grow their business? Other than, of course, getting RoHS certification. Anninos: We pride ourselves on trying to think outside the box. This has helped us add a lot of value-added services, such as distribution, brokerage, wire harness assembly and printed circuit board assembly. A lot of our competitors only do one of these things, like printed circuit board assembly, or they’re just a distributor. This diversification also lets us be more price competitive because we can eliminate some of the middle man functions for our customers, such as distribution. We also stock finished goods for our customers that we’ll hold only for them. We’ll hold materials on our shelves and ship at monthly increments for just-in-time inventory management.

eepn2: Do you have offices or representa-
tion in other parts of the country or inter-
nationally?
Anninos: We have our headquarters in Moorsetown
and a sales office in Pittsburgh, but we’re still pretty

much a regional operation. But we have business in Florida and we have a few big customers in Atlanta. We also have a lot of supply chains set up with vendors and manufacturers reps that involve products coming from overseas. And we’re in the process of moving to a larger facility just down the road in the same industrial park we currently occupy to accommodate our growth.

 

eepn2: Most domestic contract manufacturers seem to be doing well at the moment. Is that simply recognition that they provide the services their customers need and that there is a convenience and cost advantage in using facilities such as yours? Anninos: I think there are a lot of American-based OEM customers of a certain size that would benefit greatly from outsourcing either subassembly work or even to turnkey at least part of their product line, and there are companies like ours that would enable them to do this. There are companies that aren’t in a position to outsource their products overseas, possibly because of volume or because of sensitive technologies, or even lead-time issues. We provide that outlet. With all the publicity about outsourcing offshore, from a percentage standpoint, most U.S. OEMs that are outsourcing their manufacturing are taking it to other U.S. companies. We have also won some business based on intellectual property issues, finding that some companies that took their business offshore had some problems in this area and decided to bring their work back to U.S. manufacturers, like us. You may also have

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See Our Ad In The Labs Section

 

noticed that under our Syscom Tech logo it says, "Increase Your Profits." That’s a conversation starter for us with new customers. We tell them to do what they do best, and we’ll do what we do best and that is manufacturing and to use our supply channels. We think we can increase our customers’ profits because what we do best, they can’t do. It’s a win-win for both companies.