We are proud to announce that DC Electronics is now a member of the Amphenol family of companies. Amphenol is a world wide leader in providing interconnect solutions.
Click here to read the acquisition announcement.
Meet the Mold Man 8000. The latest addition to DC's ever expanding production floor. This new piece of equipment redefines what's possible with overmolding. It will allow us the ability to handle increasingly sophistocated and sensitive imbedded PCB device connectors. It also improves qualtiy and reduces productio time. Click here to watch a video.
High Tech R & D work is demanding. Things happen fast and uncertainty is always part of the process. Topcon Engineeering Manager, Michael Chelberg says it is not easy to find suppliers that are up to the challenge. “The turn around times are always short. Last minute design changes are the norm. Companies that are good at prototyping are a special breed”.
“That’s what experience and a single focus does for you”, says Chief Operations Officer, Ruben Macias. DC Electronics has been manufacturing cable and wire harness assemblies in its San Jose facility for 30 years. Macias says the ability to quickly produce prototypes comes down clear communication and direct access to engineers. “We don’t have a lot layers between the customer’s design engineers and ours. You want the people that know what they need speaking directly with the people that know how to make it happen”. Topcon’s Chelberg has the same assessment. “The process has to allow for a lot of back and forth and issues need to be resolved fast”.
In the past, Topcon built many of its prototype cables in-house, but Chelberg says the engineering team realized in order to have what DC offers, they would have to tool up in big way. “ DC has the machine shop to create molds. It has overmolding machines, the testing equipment and engineers that do nothing but deisgn cables. We can do a lot more for less by using DC”.
The 350 person manufacturing operation has built a flexible process. The production floor can jump from one-off protoyping to full-scale production almost overnight. Company President, Dave Cianciulli says that ability to respond quickly to changes comes from working in the heart of Silicon Valley. “If you’re a high tech R & D company, it’s all about developing new products and evolving the old ones. To stay ahead you have to move fast”.
But in the final analysis, Cianciulli says, it always comes down to one basic reality. Can you get the job done within the customer’s price requirements? “Let’s face it, cost drives everything. if you can’t deliver on cost, you can’t deliver” says Cianciulli. The DC COO, agrees, “engineering in efficiencies has to be part of the design process”. On the manufacturing side, Macias says DC is in a constant state of evolution to achieve higher quality with greater efficiency. “New automation technology, LEAN manufacturing processes, finding the smartest engineers, that’s what keeps us competitive”. And when you are a small company competing in a global economy, staying competitive means staying alive.