Santa Ana-based Express Manufacturing Inc. has surpassed Taiwan’s Foxconn Electronics Inc. for the top spot on the Business Journal’s annual list of contract electronics makers.
Express Manufacturing, which makes circuit boards, networking gear and other products for companies, saw a 22% gain in local employees to 700 people in the past 12 months.
The gain pushed the company past Foxconn, now No. 2 with an estimated 600 people at its Fullerton plant. A year ago, Express Manufacturing ranked No. 2 on our list.
It’s the company’s second year of 20% or so growth.
“We have picked up new products under two industries, gaming and entertainment, and the wireless industrial market,” said spokeswoman Leslie Hughes Bradford. “We have had to add (workers) across the board for production from beginning to end.”
The company expects to do about $98 million in sales this year, up 61% from a year earlier, Bradford said.
Express Manufacturing opened its first factory in China at the end of last year, about two hours outside Hong Kong, Bradford said.
“There are a lot of customers that like having a U.S. and China presence,” she said.
The company’s goal is to provide customers with what Chief Executive C.P. Chin calls “flexible service.”
“Our main job here is to bridge the gap, especially for low cost manufacturing services,” Chin said.
Express Manufacturing was among a handful of contract electronics makers on the list that added jobs. As a group, the companies held steady on hiring in the past year.
The 15 companies on the list employ 3,311 people in OC, statistically unchanged from a year ago. The list includes three estimates. Without estimates, the remaining 12 companies saw a 1% drop in their local ranks.
Taking Express Manufacturing out of the mix, local workers were down about 5% at the 14 other companies.
Those on the list make circuit boards and other products under contract for computer, aerospace and medical device companies.
No. 3 Santa Ana-based TTM Technologies Inc., which makes circuit boards, revamped its operations this year as it integrated last year’s $226 million buy of Tyco Printed Circuit Board Inc., a former Tyco International Ltd. unit.
With the acquisition, TTM picked up nine sites and doubled its overall workforce.
Locally, jobs at TTM were up 13% to 388 people, moving the company up from No. 4 last year. TTM has beefed up its local sales staff, according to Chief Executive Kent Alder.
No. 4 Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc., a maker of flexible circuit boards for “flip” style cell phones and other devices, took a hit this year when sales slowed to top customer Motorola Inc.
The company fell a spot from No. 3 on our list last year with a 31% drop, or 157 jobs, to 343 local workers.
Multi-Fineline, known as M-Flex, is working to diversify away from Motorola with sales to Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, among other cell phone makers.
The company is also reworking operations in Anaheim by moving all assembly work offshore, according to spokeswoman Connie Chandler.
“The facility here is being gradually converted to an R & D; facility where most of the prototype activity is going to be done,” Chandler said. “Previously, there was more production work done here. But it’s moved to our plants in China.”
M-Flex’s overall headcount rose by 42% to 12,750 workers.
A tie for No. 5 a year ago was broken by DDi Corp. of Anaheim, which fell to No. 6 this year.
The local operation of San Jose-based Sanmina-SCI Corp. now holds the No. 5 spot by itself with an estimated 330 OC workers.
DDi, a circuit board maker, saw its local worker count shrink 8% to 290 people.
The job cuts were the result of equipment DDi installed on its assembly line, Chief Executive Mikel Williams said.
“We are always trying to gain efficiencies,” he said. “You can’t measure a successful manufacturing company by head count anymore. The fewer people you can use to get things done, the more successful you are.”
The company has been going after more profitable deals with big aerospace contractors after a major overhaul in its operations this year.
“The plant in Anaheim, one of our five sites, is performing much better now than it was a year ago,” Williams said. “That’s the direct result of a lot of staff training and some quality improvement programs. It’s improved our relationships with the aerospace manufacturers.”
No. 7 Santa Ana’s Cal Quality Electronics Inc. held its spot and gained a handful of workers for a total of 190, up 6% from a year earlier.
Cal Quality, like TTM and Express Manufacturing, does a lot of low volume work and makes more technically complex components.
The company has seen some work that went to China come back to the states after quality and engineering problems plagued its customers, according to Brock Koren, vice president of sales and marketing.
“We are starting to see kind of a kickback of people coming back from China,” he said. “A lot of our customers had problems with intellectual property not being protected, shipping customs, quality problems and counterfeit parts. It has turned out to be more expensive than they thought.”
