EMS@C-LEVEL
As Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company and SCOOP writer, Philip Stoten, continues to talk to EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) executives he learns more about their individual and collective experiences and their expectations for their own businesses and for the entire electronic manufacturing industry.
EMS@C-LEVEL
ACDi CEO Bill Hornbaker on Mastering Adaptability and Innovating Growth in EMS
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I talk to Bill Hornbaker, CEO of ACDi, a company that evolved from simple beginnings in PCB layout to an EMS powerhouse with three locations. My guest guides us through ACDi's strategic transformations, acquisitions, and a timely pivot to assembly services that heralded a new era of growth. You'll see the significance of each strategic move, from embracing the defense sector to breaking into the EV market, as we traverse a journey of adaptability and foresight that mirrors the global manufacturing landscape's shift towards reshoring and technological innovation.
Celebrating the people behind the machines, we explore ACDi's company culture, where promoting leaders from within fosters a loyal and dynamic workforce. Bill explains the dynamics of maintaining a customer-centric ethos that's as responsive as it is flexible, something he learned in PCB design and a vital ingredient in developing enduring partnerships and ongoing success. This episode is a testament to ACDi's relentless pursuit of manufacturing excellence and the continuous evolution required to stay ahead in an industry where only the adaptable survive and thrive.
Learn more about ACDI at https://www.acdi.com/
EMS@C-Level is hosted by global inspection leaders Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Global Electronics Association (https://www.electronics.org)
You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.
40 years, congratulations, thank you. Pretty amazing achievement, but tell me where it all began 40 years ago, because you've been doing it for 40 years. You've just not arrived here recently, correct?
Speaker 2So we started the business and all we did was PCB layouts. That's all we did, and we had CAD systems at the time. We got the business up to around 23 people just doing layouts and drafting work, but then we kind of plateaued. So we did that a couple of years in a row. We started surveying our customers to see, you know, is there another service, is there something else you need? And everyone we talked to said assembly, if you could assemble, we would be interested. So, you know, I didn't know anything about manufacturing. So I was like, you know, okay, we'll go buy some machines and we'll have at it. But that didn't work out. I had gone to a seminar about how to do acquisitions. So we started looking for potential targets and in 2005, we bought Patapsco Designs. That was owned by Circuit City Stores and they were going to, you know know, just divest themselves of that. And uh, you know, so, uh, we ended up purchasing that and, uh, it was a mess. It was so total mess. You know, I was always under the impression that, um, you know, pcb layout, that's the tough part, right, uh? But you don't realize until you get into it how many variables are actually in manufacturing. So we put together a good team and things started getting better and our customers did give us the work that they had promised. And then I guess, fast forward a bit more, 2012,.
Speaker 2Fawn from fawn industries the North Carolina facility it was the same thing was a larger company. They had a small division. They just wanted to get rid of and and focus on they were doing plastics, so they focused on the plastics. That was actually a pretty good company right out of the gate. It was well run. Kim Boykin was down there running things. He's still with us to this day and he runs a really good organization. And then I guess the next big event was right after COVID, we purchased the factory up in Connecticut. So that gives us our three locations and that's how we got here. But over 40 years, you know there was ups and downs and you know tribulations.
Speaker 1Yeah and huge changes in the industry. You know you look at the digital transformation of the whole process, but also you look at what's. You know what's gone on geopolitically at that time, the amount of manufacturing that went overseas, how that's maybe starting to come back. You've seen a lot of tides, ebb and flow at that time we have.
Speaker 2There was a time I guess probably the early 2000s we thought everything was going to go offshore, you know. And then you started hearing. You started hearing little tidbits maybe 2010, 2012, they're going to reshore, and that really never happened. So we started focusing on more military and things like that. That it's going to stay here in the States. Yeah, it's good, solid work, it's profitable, it's going to stay here, and so that's what we focused on. But we have seen recently, especially since COVID, some companies coming back.
Speaker 1Yeah, and you have all the approvals for the defense stuff, you have ITAR and you have everything else which is absolutely really valuable stuff. What other sectors are key to you now, apart from?
Speaker 2defense. We do a lot of industrial, industrial controls, things like that. We're actually dabbling in some energy stuff energy management for renewables, some energy stuff, energy management for renewables. So it's how do you store that power at nighttime or when the wind's not blowing? So there seems to be a lot of money and effort being put into that right now. So we are seeing some of that. I guess the other one would be home chargers. We've had a couple of companies that are developing their version of home chargers for electric cars.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's interesting. And the EV market, I think, is fascinating. It feels like it's stalling a tiny bit at the moment because the grants have maybe come to an end, like it's stalling a tiny bit at the moment because the the grants have maybe come to an end. Um, but actually the automotive industry is just using more and more electronics, whether it's internal combustion or ev. So it's, you know, it's, it's still a still a growing sector.
Speaker 2It's, uh, still it is, and I think it continues to grow. Even if you get autonomous vehicles, I think you have even more elect electronics um and if we get autonomous vehicles, I think you have even more electronics.
Speaker 1And if we get autonomous vehicles, we're going to need smarter cities. So we're going to need more electronic infrastructure around those vehicles because you know you can't trust them.
Speaker 2Just to look all the time we talked to a company. It was out in the Midwest, it was an agricultural company and it was the seating machine. You pull behind your tractor and you know, the guy told us that what used to be, we would just drag it behind the tractor, you put the seeds out. You know it's probably too many seeds or not enough seeds, but now they have gone electronic and it puts out the proper amount, so you don't have the waste or anything like that. And we assume they're probably doing the same thing with the fertilizers too.
Speaker 1Yeah, and it's almost autonomous. They're using camera technology to choose where to put stuff.
Speaker 2To cut the corn or the plant or whatever.
Speaker 1So electronics in everything we do. You mentioned the megatrends. The megat trend we've seen in terms of of reshoring, and you know it feels like there's some reshoring. It feels like there's some cases where, as numbers get higher, they don't go offshore. Which is equally valuable to companies like yours. We're seeing is the challenge of recruiting talent. Talent seems to be an issue everywhere. Is that the case in your locations and what's the answer to that?
Speaker 2Is it a mixture of automation, a mixture of training? So here in Maryland it has been a bit easier. We've been hiring especially for the professional staff. We've just been hiring engineers right out of school, training them up and they've done really well the entry level people. I think you're going to have to do the same thing. You're going to have to bring people in, you're going to have to pay them and train them. You know, plus a lot of people you know they still they believe that manufacturing is still kind of a dirty job.
Promoting From Within and Customer Focus
Speaker 1Then you've got to get them through and show them the state-of-the-art facilities you've got, because surely then there's a little bit of a light bulb comes on and they can see that there are good, sustainable jobs out there.
Speaker 2Yes, One of the things that we have always done from the very beginning is to try to promote from within. So anybody that really has the hustle, we always give them opportunities. And any new job postings or anything we do, we always open it up to the current employees first and they can apply for them. So that has worked out well for us, really well.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think that's important and you know it's like you say, if they've got the hustle, you're prepared to invest in training them and prepared to create more opportunities and better opportunities for them, which is important. That's how you're going to reach them.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean at the end of the day, everybody just wants to feel good about what they do, right? You know it's not just a paycheck. I think it gets lost. If you're just looking at it like that, if you know, if you feel like you're valuable, you're contributing to the company, I think you go home feeling good and I think that's important.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's hugely important, isn't it? And you talked a bit about the relationship with customers and the industries you work in. What do you think it is about ACDI now that makes you so compelling and sticky with those customers? So when we got into manufacturing.
Speaker 2We're just doing the PCB layout. We were always very, very customer focused. You know you always have changes. You know that there's always changes every design you ever do, and we try to bring that philosophy into the manufacturing. So, you know, we try to be agile, we try to have a sense of urgency, you know to. You know, get the customer what they want, but at the same time, if they need to change, we always try to be flexible and I think people tend to like that. Overall, everybody can buy the machines. You can say, oh, if you hire the best people, everything's going to be fine. But it is a certain philosophy that you have to take care of the customer, you have to be flexible and you have to continue to. You know, make sure that their needs are met.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I love that. That comes from your experience as a PCB designer Because, as I said before, that's where I started my career. As I said before, that's where I started my career. One of the things that I think is interesting about ACDI is you seem to have a really strong focus now on digital transformation, on manufacturing excellence, and you're really driving quality improvements. You're driving performance and efficiency improvements through that. You seem to have a really good team that's doing that.
Speaker 2Is that something that you've focused on um in the last decade? We've always focused on technology uh and trying to keep up with the latest trends and things. I think, as we've grown um and become more profitable, it allows us to to focus and reinvest in uh, new, new technology, new software, training for the people, and that has, I think, has helped the overall growth of the company. It really has.
Speaker 1Yeah, it pays dividends, not just in delivering more profit to the bottom line, but also delivering better products and more reliability to your customers.
Speaker 2But I have seen manufacturing companies that don't reinvest and you go into places and they're kind of junky looking so to me. You have new component sizes come out. If you don't have the latest and greatest equipment, I mean, how are you going to do it? How are you going to inspect them? So all that technology plays into it and I think the reinvestment, the training, all that is a big part of it.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, and you have a good partnership with your local representatives and certain equipment manufacturers. That's important to kind of tell them what you've got coming down the line, but also understand what they're seeing in the market and what they're delivering.
Speaker 2Yeah that's correct understand what they're seeing in the market and what they're delivering. Yeah, that's correct. We standardize across all three factories the Coyoung products, the SPI and the 3DOI. It allows us to share the training back and forth, the expertise that we have here in Maryland, because we started with it here first. I mean, and when we went out to look at stuff, you know we evaluated a lot of different ones and we had some, you know, competitor products were saying, oh, you're picking the wrong one because you know you're a low volume, high mix and our machines are better. But we have been very, very satisfied with the Coyote Young product.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, it seems to have done the job, and you know, just as just as you invest in R and D, having partners that invest in R and D is is equally important. You've grown to three facilities. What does? What does the future look like in terms of of strategy?
Speaker 2We are without giving away any secrets. Yeah, we're not going to give you away. We're always looking for opportunities. When they present, present themselves, we like to evaluate them. I would love to get a place in Florida so I could spend part of my time in Florida, to be honest, but we kind of have the East Coast covered. It would be nice to have one down in Florida. We'd have the whole East Coast covered and maybe at some point one on the West Coast.
Speaker 1Congratulations on growing the business to where it is today. Continued success, and thanks so much for talking to me. Thank you very much.