Tucson: Tucson Assembly Systems Profile

Electronics firm reinvents success

Circuit-board maker spawns new venture


By Ian Friedman

ARIZONA DAILY STAR 10/4/09

While the United States continues to work through a difficult economic period, one local manufacturing company’s current success is based on its struggle during a previous eco­nomic rough patch. Tucson Embedded Systems Inc., a systems engineering firm, was forced to transform its busi­ness plan after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said Michael Lupien, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing. Now the compa­ny, which builds and tests integrated systems for the Fed­eral Aviation Ad­ministration and the military, has helped launch a printed cir­cuit- board manu­facturing business. It hopes that will fill a niche for local firms while allow­ing Tucson Embedded to become more vertically integrated — taking products from raw components to finished circuit boards, Lupien said.

Tucson Assembly Solutions LLC, which launched in August, will serve as a new branch of Tucson Embedded in that it will allow the two-company “strategic partnership” to handle everything from the construction of the circuit boards to the final testing of completely installed modules, Lupien said.

Re-evaluation after 9/11

Tucson Embedded Systems was founded in 1997 after a Tucson com­pany, The Software Firm Inc., decided to expand on its business-technolo­gy- systems platform and begin test­ing components for the FAA, Lupien said.

Leading up to 9/11, Tucson Em­bedded had about 105 employees, he said. At that time the company was conducting 85 percent of its business in commercial avionics, while the other 15 percent was still based in de­veloping business applications.

After 9/11 and the subsequent fall­out in commercial airline travel, Tuc­son Embedded was forced to reduce its overhead and employee count by about 40 percent, Lupien said. At that point, the company re-evaluated its focus and set a goal of conducting half of its business with the Department of Defense while the other half would remain focused on FAA testing.

Today, Tucson Embedded employs 75 engineers and has a total of 95 employees spread across three locations. It does about 60 percent of its business with the DOD while 40 percent remains focused on the FAA, Lupien said.

The company was ranked 3,887 on the 2009 Inc. 5000 list of the nation’s fastest-growing companies.

One of the main reasons the people at Tucson Embedded chose to invest in and help launch Tucson Assembly was so they could become more competitive in terms of attract­ing government contracts, Lupien said.

Looking ahead

Tucson Embedded is now bidding to retrofit and expand the computer systems of about 1,200 military airplanes, and Lupien thinks the company’s ability to manufacture boards — within its partnership — will play a crucial role in securing that contract.

One government project Tucson Embedded already is working on aims to allow mili­tary vehicles to be able to sim­ply “plug in” various technical and armory components, Lupi­en said. The system will allow vehicles to be adapted, on a dai­ly basis, so they can complete a wide variety of missions.

“The idea of having a vehicle — say a ground vehicle — being able to put in different sensors so that on a day-to-day basis it did a different job,” Lupien said. “Maybe today it is a radio com­munication vehicle, tomorrow it is a scout vehicle doing a top­secret mission. The only differ­ence is that you put in different sensors so that it is capable of doing one job or the other.”

A completed project that uses this technology was on display during Tucson Assem­bly’s Sept. 16 grand opening for the Tucson business communi­ty. Lupien said the Raytheon Hy-DRA hybrid-electric drive, all-terrain vehicle is able to ac­cept and use various forms of machinery that can easily be attached to the vehicle’s turret.

More local control

Michael Sherwood, general manager for Tucson Assembly, worked as a component sales­man for 15 years before launch­ing this new endeavor.

Sherwood said that besides its work with Tucson Embed­ded, his company is looking to fill a void for local businesses that are looking to have a more hands-on approach to their circuit-board production.

“I have enough friends down at Raytheon, and all of those guys are like, ‘Oh my God, I wish I could have something built in Tucson,’ ” Sherwood said.

He said he has heard numer­ous horror stories of people having their parts miscon­structed by out-of-the-area manufacturers.

Customer Ken Gallagher, engineer and owner of K&E Electronics, said that while there are other local circuit­board manufacturers, Tucson Assembly is the only one he has found that is able to compete nationally in terms of both quality and pricing.

“If you want something right now, you can drive it over there, wait a week and then come back and get it,” said Gallagher who previously had his boards man­ufactured in Phoenix. “There are some really nice advantages to having a local company like that.”

While the two companies will also do business outside of their partnership, Sherwood said Tucson Assembly would not have been able to get off the ground if not for the help it re­ceived from Tucson Embed­ded.

“The ties that they have and the larger military contracts out there, I could never dream of having within five to six years,” he said. “As a startup company, Raytheon would not give me the time of day, but with Tucson Embedded … that just makes me that much more credible.”

Static-free environment

Tucson Assembly is operat­ing in a 16,000-square-foot fa­cility at 3391 E. Hemisphere Loop that was leased by Tucson Embedded, as part of the companies’ investor agree­ment, Sherwood said. The firm has five permanent and three temporary employees.

Tucson Assembly is a quiet, static-free environment that looks more like a doctor’s office than a typical manufacturing plant. The 35-foot machine that makes the boards is set up along the side of a largely open room. It is run from start to fin­ish by a single lab-coated tech­nician.

To begin the manufacturing process, the boards are sent through a screen printer and a glue machine that each prepare the boards to receive their vari­ous electrical parts, Sherwood said. Next, they go through two machines that place the com­ponents on each board so rap­idly that it’s impossible to see each individual operation.

Once a board receives its components, it is placed in an oven where all of the parts are soldered into place, he said.

Through its first three weeks of operations, Tucson Assem­bly has shipped about $30,000 worth of products. Sherwood said he is expecting to ship be­tween $2 million and $3 million within the year and about $50 million to $100 million within 10 years, as part of a 10­year plan, which he developed in consultation with Tucson Embedded.

Tucson Assembly has plans to eventually try and expand into a 50,000-square-foot plant that would operate with between 200 and 300 employ­ees, he said.

Sherwood said his goal is to help sustain Tucson business by allowing local companies to manufacture locally.

He said his company is espe­cially beneficial to Tucson be­cause customers “can walk down to my door and knock on it and see what’s going on.”

“They can come down and look in my warehouse and make sure that I truly have all of those parts that I say I have so that I can build their product.”

Contact NASA Space Grant intern Ian Friedman at 434-4083 or ifriedman@azstarnet.com