Product cycles are becoming so short and the risk of tooling up to make something that doesn’t fly is rising all the time, that more and more companies are going for contract manufacturing in order to offload much of the risk onto somebody else. Few companies anywhere are better braced to assume that risk than SCI Systems Inc, Huntsville, Alabama, and the company, which thrives on the precarious business of contract manufacturing, has just announced major expansion plans to meet a record order backlog. It has just taken on more than 400 more people in its North Alabama operations and plans to add 1,000 further jobs in coming months. The majority of the jobs – mainly in Huntsville, but also in Lacey’s Spring and Arab, are in manufacturing and assembly, the rest in management and operations.
