Eight years after a management buy-out from Mitel Corp, Quantum Electronics Manufacturing Ltd is preparing to treble its capacity with a $4m investment in new plant and factory space. The Newport, UK company has built a $25m annual business out of its virtual manufacturing model for electronics start-ups, but says a new 33,000 square feet facility and a two-year program to spend $2.5m on new plant will boost sales to between $65m and $70 within three years.
Quantum claims to differentiate itself from most lower tier electronics manufacturers and assemblers by offering a full range of design for manufacturing, assembly, supply and distribution chain services to innovative new companies. Start-ups, said managing director, Mark Woodiwiss, tend to be fast, creative and talented. But when it comes to the practicalities of putting something together at lowest cost, they often don’t know where to start.
Woodiwiss, and his management team, developed the skills needed to bring new designs to market and to adapt existing designs for new markets, while acting as the manufacturing arm of the Canadian telecoms kit maker Mitel until 1992. Since then, said Woodiwiss, the company has carefully built a series of relationships with small electronics design companies, and larger players seeking a reliable and high quality source for low-volume product manufacturing. The company’s customer list now includes major professional electronic product makers such as the US medical systems suppliers, Johnson & Johnson and Perkin-Elmer, as well local entrepreneurs such as Equiinet (a communications access key maker founded by Quantum chairman, Bob Jones), Flexion Systems, Imigex and Virtual Access.
Increasingly, said Woodiwiss, Quantum’s revenue growth, which has averaged 30% per annum for the last several years, is tightly linked to ts customers’ growth. The company has no plans to branch into low-volume, short-contract manufacturing, and is content to leave longer-term higher volume manufacturing to the global majors, such as Solectron and SCI.
