Major North American expansion unveiled by Teknek

Citation

(2010), "Major North American expansion unveiled by Teknek", Circuit World, Vol. 36 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/cw.2010.21736aab.002

Major North American expansion unveiled by Teknek

Article Type: Industry news From: Circuit World, Volume 36, Issue 1

Teknek have opened a new US facility in Charlotte (North Carolina) in September. This new facility not only houses sales and service but also a North American fulfilment centre and consumable production capacity.

Teknek equipment is employed world-wide in a variety of industries from semi-conductors to printing to improve yields and reduce wastage by removing contamination in critical production processes. The company pioneered the development of contact cleaning equipment over 20 years ago and is now the global market leader in this field with over 16,000 “clean machines” installed in the field. It is estimated that the company's technology has saved customers in excess of $2 billion.

Stephen Mitchell, Managing Director, Teknek commented: “The US market has been very important for Teknek during the 20 years it has been supplying yield improvement technology. The US facility will mirror our two other production and fulfilment centres, one in Hong Kong and the other in Glasgow. Once operational, the US centre will enable us to provide world class service across the globe”.

In addition to announcing the creation of the new US facility, Teknek has appointed David Westwood to the position of General Manager, Teknek USA.

Mitchell said: “I am delighted David has accepted the post of General Manager for Teknek USA. He has been with the company for over 20 years, several of which were spent in the USA. David is well known by Teknek users, and brings with him a wealth of experience regarding products and manufacturing processes. David's family will relocate from Scotland to the Charlotte area”.

David Westwood commented: “This is a great time to be involved with Teknek. We continue to be at the forefront of technological advances in yield improvement with no less than six new product launches this year and a similar number planned for next year. For example, our latest development, Nanocleen, has taken the market by storm by offering unrivalled cleaning benefits”.

He added: “There are definite signs of an upswing in the US market and having a larger local facility including production to support our customers is a very positive move. I spent many happy years in the US during the early part of my career with Teknek and I look forward to moving back there with the family”.

For further information about Teknek please visit: www.teknek.com or call +44 (0)141 568 8100.

Large etching line order for Cemco

Graphic Arts, North Yorkshire have ordered a conveyorised Etching System for use with Ferric Chloride from Cemco FSL Ltd, of Waterlooville, Hampshire. The system comprises etching, rinsing, brushing and drying and will be used for processing stainless and brass name plates.

Peter Young of Graphic Arts commented “after visiting a number of manufacturers both in Europe and the USA, we, GSM Graphic Arts, have decided to put our trust in Cemco. This decision was taken after talking with the Cemco design team who spent time understanding our processes, field engineers and looking at their state of the art facilities. This investment will allow us to continue to offer etched labels and nameplates using aluminium, stainless steel and brass long into the future. Reinforcing our position as the largest metal label and nameplate manufacturer in Europe; allowing us to maintain our reputation for high quality and further improving our customer service”.

The system was installed in September this year.

For more information please visit: www.cemco.com

AT&S integrated management system

All AT&S plants are now qualified according to ISO 9001, TS 16949, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 Quality, environment and social aspects have been combined in an integrated management system. Ecology, social responsibility and economics do not conflict with each other at AT&S, one of the world's strongest-performing PCB manufacturers. On the contrary, all aspects assure sustainable business and are being combined within AT&S's integrated management system. With the successful certification of the AT&S plant in Korea, now all AT&S sites worldwide are qualified according to ISO 9001, TS 16949, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 standards.

The AT&S integrated management system combines the issues of quality, environment, safety and people's health, and documents relevance and equality of these issues accordingly. The system rests upon quality norms ISO 9001, TS 16949 (quality management for automotive production), the environmental management standard ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 (standard for occupational health and safety). Regular internal audits and revisions by independent third parties confirm the consistent compliance to the AT&S management system. The latest global audits were terminated successfully. “Now all AT&S sites are being qualified according to the Group-wide system. AT&S's plant in Korea, which had been acquired in 2006, was primarily integrated”, states Harald Sommerer, CEO of AT&S. “In a process-oriented business such as PCB production quality is of major importance. Linked with AT&S's responsibility as a corporate citizen, the globally successful qualification underpins our intense efforts within this area.”

AT&S's product portfolio comprises single-sided, double-sided, multilayer, HDI, flexible, rigid-flexible and semi-flexible PCBs tailored to individual customer specification. In total AT&S supplies more than 10,000 different products per year, and the range extends from prototypes to volume production. AT&S is strongly geared towards manufacturing highly complex HDI-PCBs, which involves around 50 different production steps. Therefore, the quality of products and production processes is vital and gives AT&S a significant competitive advantage. It is essential to deliver the level of quality demanded by customers, to minimise production wastage, and to optimise the use of capacity and resources.

Investor BlueBay takes over insolvent PCB producer Ruwel

Ruwel is the leading European producer of PCBs for the automotive industry worldwide. In the wake of the financial and automobile crisis, orders dropped and the quality producer was forced to file an application to institute insolvency proceedings at the beginning of February. Horst Piepenburg from Düsseldorf was appointed insolvency administrator and took direct control of the company as of 1 May after insolvency proceedings had been instituted, but with a workforce of 220 adapted to the order situation, while 180 had to be dismissed or made redundant. Owing to their outstanding reputation, Ruwel succeeded in the following months in gaining a new major customer, while other key customers placed additional orders in an effort to support their strategic supplier-cum-partner. At the end of July a solution for the future was able to be found for the Pfullingen plant with the former owner of Ruwel, Bernd Zevens.

In this situation, it was a matter of finding a solution for the Ruwel headquarters in Geldern. Financial investor BlueBay, one of three partners in Ruwel since 2006, signalled their readiness to continue their involvement with the Geldern location under certain conditions. BlueBay has a worldwide network and indicated that, together with an Asian partner, they were prepared to take over responsibility for approx. 220 jobs in Geldern in a new company named “Ruwel International GmbH” as future majority shareholder.

Some days later Unimicron, with a turnover of 1.4 billion US dollars last year, and the second biggest producer of PCBs in the world, joined the Geldern PCB producer Ruwel as strategic co-partner next to financial investor BlueBay. The renowned Taiwanese company maintains 14 production facilities, seven of which are in Taiwan and seven in China. Unimicron offers nearly all types of PCBs, including those with ultra-fine conductors, backplanes, and flexible and flex-rigid circuits in large lots. Unimicron is acknowledged to be a high quality supplier in Asia and therefore in terms of quality philosophy suits Ruwel very well indeed. Ruwel is the leading producer of PCBs in Europe for the automotive industry worldwide demanding highest quality standards, while Unimicron focus their sales activities on telecommunications and high-value computer and consumer electronics. Accordingly, the two companies ideally complement each other. Ruwel will take over the marketing of Unimicron circuits in Europe, and thus at the same time to provide their own customers access to products from Asian production with a high standard of quality. This will make it possible for Ruwel to assume the role of a “global player” for this market segment. Ruwel will be the ideal partner for its customers in the two most important marketplaces Europe and Asia for automotive electronics.