ESCATEC continues its multi-million dollar equipment investment plan with new $250K functional tester
ESCATEC has invested in a second Functional Tester from LX-Instruments for its facility in Heerbrugg, Switzerland to provide electrical testing of PCBAs and final assembled products.
“We have a multi-million dollar investment programme to ensure that we have the latest and best facilities,” explained Gerhard Klauser, General Manager at ESCATEC Switzerland. “This ensures that we can provide customers with the precision and quality that they expect from a Swiss company. We upgrade all equipment and software at the same time throughout the ESCATEC Group so that we can transfer production from our low volume production facilities in Switzerland to our high volume facilities in Asia. Having exactly the same state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment everywhere ensures that the transfer is always seamless, quick and error free.” Being able to provide customers with a smooth transition to high volume, low cost manufacture in Asia is a key part of ESCATEC’s service to customers. Switzerland provides European customers with a local partner where new ideas for products can be worked on by ESCATEC’s Research and Design department. “Between us, we speak most European languages and, being located in the heart of Europe, we are only a short flight away for European companies,” said Gerhard Klauser. “This enables us to work closely with customers and provide a very personal service to refine the product and optimise the design for manufacturability. Our manufacturing facility in Heerbrugg is in the same building so the R&D department can walk the floor to help iron out any bugs. Once it makes sense to transfer to high volume manufacture, we simply ship all the machine control programmes out to our facilities in Malaysia which can immediately start production. Being part of the ESCATEC Group, ensures that they operate to the same exacting standards of Swiss precision.” An example of ESCATEC’s commitment to quality and precision is that all of its facilities operate to the ISO13485 quality management standards, which is one of the highest standards and is designed for the manufacture of medical equipment. “Very few EMS companies are certified to this high standard because of the costs of doing so but we have invested in this certification as our customers want Swiss precision in all aspects of their dealings with us,” concluded Martin Kingdon, ESCATEC’s Business Development Director. “By always operating to this standard throughout our organisation, which is well in excess of most product requirements, ensures that we deliver that all the time.”
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