Filtronic reshores critical comms manufacturing from China to USA
Designer and manufacturer of RF, microwave and mmWave products for the wireless telecoms, mission-critical communications and defence applications markets, Filtronic plc, today announced that it has successfully reshored from China the manufacturing of a critical communications product for the North American public safety market.
Image courtesy Filtronic
By proactively working with its leading OEM client, Filtronic was able to meet its business objective of re-shoring critical product assembly and supply chain back to the USA to improve equipment lead-times.
Filtronic successfully relocated manufacturing of the finished product from its offshore facility to its established operations in Salisbury, Maryland. Utilising its experience, local knowledge and a cloud-based Manufacturing Execution System (MES) platform, this complex transition was managed smoothly, effectively and efficiently.
“Reshoring of a product supply chain is a complex process and required a rapid response to deal with a changing dynamic within the geo-political landscape,” said Walter Magiera, Chief Commercial Officer of Filtronic. “The move created challenges in terms of both recruitment and re-alignment of operational facilities and processes, but with the benefit of a wealth of local RF expertise we were able to recruit personnel with previous experience of public safety product assembly. Additional equipment was procured and re-allocated, enabling us to rapidly replicate the production line at the former facility.”
Throughout the transition, Filtronic fulfilled all the key customer’s requirements, successfully commissioning a full US-based assembly facility for its critical communication product for the North American Public Safety market. The transition took place smoothly and rapidly, meeting the client’s quality standards and passing an extensive and rigorous customer audit, enabling timely re-certification.
“Filtronic’s swift and professional response to this geo-political change enabled our client to meet its country-of-origin targets without a drop in production,” said Richard Gibbs, CEO of Filtronic. “The entire re-shoring operation was delivered successfully within the customer’s required time frame of less than six months. At the same time, we have been able to implement product and process improvements and also improve workflow and logistics, leading to a significant reduction in lead time on these critical communications products.”