Printed Circuit Board Assembly, Center of Excellence, Mankato, Minnesota

Tour Nortech System's Center of Excellence for PCBA design, prototyping, testing and production.

TRANSCRIPT

John Lindeen (00:01):
Nortech Mankato is our global center of excellence for printed circuit board assemblies and some high level assemblies for our customers. We really emphasize on solving hard complex problems related to low volume, high mix in the PCBAs. Our customers are usually in the defense and the medical industry with a little bit of industrial applications spread through it.

Brad Reiman (00:32):
Here at Nortech Mankato, we have several different capabilities. We have not only design capabilities, but we also have manufacturing capabilities all within one umbrella. And our customers find that useful because they have basically one stop shop to get everything from a napkin sketch to product realization. For instance, we have auto insert, which a lot of companies don't currently do that because it's kind of an older technology, but we have automated equipment to be able to do that. We have ruggedization characteristics where we can make equipment more ruggedized through the use of potting, through the use of conformal coating. We do a lot of hand assembly work, so we can do box build assemblies that are complex, and then we also have the possibility of joining multiple different types of components. So for instance, cable assemblies and printed circuit boards, we can bring those together as a finished device.

Brooke Prestegard (01:38):
Nortech Systems provides mission-critical life-saving components for all of our segments for defense and aerospace, for the soldiers that are on the ground to anyone that's in care of our medical hospitals and such for patients. And so what we do and what our customers expect is that we have a zero defects at all times, the highest quality and standards delivery to make sure we get it to them when they need it whether it's a mission for a soldier or to do an operation for our patient. It's really important everything that we touch and what we do for our customers.

John Lindeen (02:17):
There's three things that separate Nortech Mankato from other competitors. It's our people, how we train them, their experience they have, the processes that we've identified that are very tried and true for implementation of new product as well as quality delivery. And the last thing is our capabilities. Nortech's legacy and our ability to do low volume, high mix manufacturing in our printed circuit board assemblies using our surface malt technology, our through hole technology, our various conformal coating processes. And the most importantly is our integrated test capabilities where our engineers do test development and provide solutions to the customer.

Brooke Prestegard (03:00):
What we provide for our customers is unique to Nortech itself, and we're able to do that by having long-standing people who have worked here for a long period of time, zero defects and high quality of what our customers expect and delivering on time and as quickly as what they need.

Brad Reiman (03:18):
At Mankato, we have several different testing capabilities. Flying probe tests lets you get testing done without fixturing. We have a hybrid test that does both functional and ICT in the same platform, and we also have full-blown ICT test. These capabilities allow us to create a cost-effective solution for our customers.

Tom Hobson (03:42):
Our customers expect high quality products from Nortech. We have an ISO 13485 registration, an AS 9100 registration, which helps us to maintain our quality and also our regulatory requirements for their products.

John Lindeen (04:06):
At the end of the day, one customer said it best to me, "Nortech is really viewed as a trusted partner," and it truly means partnership, not a supplier manufacturing relationship, but a partnership and an extension not only of their manufacturing side, but their engineering side. And we take that to heart as employees and as Nortech, we really see ourselves as an extension of our customer that we're working with and have good, hard collaborative discussions. So at the end of the day, that's the big difference that separates Nortech and why customers come to us.