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www.us-tech.com
National Circuit Assembly: Doing What it Takes
By Kathryn Cramer
with them millions of dollars of investment. How- ever, these large companies are not the only reason the area’s technology sector continues to grow. Much of the success of the region depends on con- tract manufacturers servicing companies from start-ups to massive OEMs. One such company is National Circuit Assem- bly (NCA), a contract manufacturer with facilities
C
entral Texas has become a vibrant hub of technology. Industry giants Dell, Apple, and others have clustered there — and brought
the last decade, NCA has kept these crucial goals as its focus, and has welcomed projects from a variety of industries. The company has served customers in the aerospace, medical and life sciences, security and defense, as well as the consumer electronics and pro- fessional audio markets. NCA began building products in 2007 with an
in-car breathalyzer for a company which then in- stalls them in vehicles. The company still produces 250 to 300 of these units a day, each one contain- ing a camera to ensure that a substitute person is not doing the breathing, and two circuit boards that communicate with the car’s computer system and prevent it from starting if the would-be dri- ver’s blood alcohol content is too high.
A Variety of Projects Cruz Alvarado, Vice President of Program
NCA operator Hoa Dao and VP of Program Management Cruz Alvarado inspect a memory card for voids and bridging.
in Garland and Austin, Texas. Many factors affect the success of a contract
manufacturer. These include using the proper equip- ment to create a quality product, building firm rela- tionships with customers, and drawing from experi- ence with design and manufacturing to accommo- date both a start-up or an established business. Over
Management cites several board assemblies that came to the company at what he calls the “paper napkin stage.” One is used in a controller for a commercial sprinkler system which monitors each individual sprinkler head; if one isn’t working, a smartphone app enables the user to diagnose the problem. Another board is used in a system which keeps track of utility use in a home, or commercial building. Again with a smartphone, users can ac- cess the gathered data in real-time. “We installed a prototype in a nearby public
library,” Alvarado says. “We discovered that the li- brary’s seven-year-old control system was turning the lights off at 10 p.m., but then turning them back on at midnight.” The monitor has attracted the attention of a few large utility companies, and has proved successful enough to warrant the in- stallation of another assembly line. The new line will join three others in the com- pany’s 25,000 square foot Austin facility. One is
dedicated to prototypes, one to mid-volume, and the newest to high-volume assembly — capable of placing 70,000 components per hour, and contain- ing in-line automated optical inspection (AOI). Along with the five assembly lines in its Garland facility, NCA can respond quickly to customers’ needs for rapid turnaround. Cloud storage enables assembly files to be downloaded and run at either location, and delivered easily to customers. While not all assemblies continue on to high- volume production, Alvarado does see a trend to-
February, 2016
NCA operator Hoa Dao inspects a memory card containing 20 BGAs.
ward keeping this level of production in the US. “IP concerns about production in China are huge,” he says. Also, he has heard some young entrepre- neurs express that, with their fathers having lost their jobs to those in overseas facilities, they prefer to work with a US-based firm and try to keep pro-
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