High performance partner Lacroix Electronics

HIGH PERFORMANCE PARTNER

This May, Lacroix Electronics celebrated the inauguration of its expanded plant at Kwidzyn in Poland. The event was attended by employees, local authority representatives, journalists and political figures, including Janusz Lewandowski, Member of the European Commission, Jean-Marc Fenet, Head of the Economic Department of the French Embassy in Poland and Jerzy Kozdron, Polish Deputy Justice Minister (representing the Polish Prime Minister).

Francois Beauxis, managing director of Lacroix Electronics, and Jean-Marc Tychyj, general manager of the Kwidzyn plant, explained the progress that has been made since the plant was first established in 1997 and the role it now plays in the European operations of Lacroix Electronics and in the expanding Polish economy.

“Our Kwidzyn plant was originally built in partnership with one of our major customers, Philips, and has specialised in electronics manufacturing services for the industrial and automotive markets,” said Mr Beauxis. “Its out-

Already a leading player in the European EMS market, France’s Lacroix Electronics has plans to soon join the top three in quality and service, thanks to a strategically balanced portfolio and a mix of high value and low cost production facilities. Peter Mercer reports.

put has grown steadily over the years but 18 months ago we put in place a programme for a significant expansion of the facility to 12,000 sq. m, including a new building and new production plant. This investment will boost even further the key role that Kwidzyn is already playing in driving growth for Lacroix Electronics. We expect the company to grow by around 27 per cent in 2014 and most of that will be thanks to this investment in Poland.”

Forty years’ experience

Based in the Maine et Loire region of western France, Lacroix Electronics specialises in Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) – the design and manufacturing of electronic assemblies and associated services – for the industrial, automotive, home automation, aerospace, defence and medical markets. For more than 40 years it has been a close partner to its customers in the design and production of circuit boards and today, with a turnover of €180m (2013) and more than 2000 employees, it is ranked among the top ten European EMS companies.

Lacroix Electronics is one of the three divisions of the Lacroix Group, a French family-controlled enterprise that is headquartered in Nantes, in western France, and currently employs some 2900 people. The other divisions of the group are Lacroix Sofrel, which specialises in telemetry solutions for the monitoring and control of remote sites, and Lacroix Signalisation, which designs and manufactures products for road signalling, traffic management and urban equipment. In 2013 the group generated revenues of €330m.

Production strategy

The headquarters of Lacroix Electronics are at Saint Pierre Montlimart, near Nantes, the site of a circuit board plant that it acquired in 1988. Today the 12,000m2 plant runs six production lines, including one line dedicated to prototyping, and has 460 employees. It offers a customised service producing electronic cards and sub-assemblies for clients in the aeronautics, defence, medical, industrial, home automation and automotive sectors. Among its long-standing customers is Zodiac Aerospace, the world-leading French manufacturer of aircraft passenger seats, who, in 2013, selected Lacroix as its best supplier of the year.

In addition to its facility in Poland, Lacroix also has production plants outside France in Zriba, Tunisia, and in Willich (Dusseldorf) in Germany. R&D centres are located in France at Rennes, Toulouse, Grenoble and Quimper as well as at the Willich facility.

“Our presence in four countries keeps us close to our customers, which is of crucial importance to the efficient management of their supply chains and although there has been a trend for European manufacturers to extend these chains to Asia, many are now coming back to European suppliers such as ourselves as the cost/quality trade-off changes,” explains Francois Beauxis. “By dividing development and production between

Mikrostyk S.A.

different sites we are also able to maximise the return on our skills in what we call ‘Time to Market’ and ‘Time to Volume’ project management. What this means is that we can use our plants in France and Germany, and our R&D centres, for high mix/low volume production for high value products for our clients in the aerospace, automotive, industrial and medical industries and concentrate low mix/high volume production in Poland and Tunisia. In fact, it is often the case that when a product has been fully developed and the client now requires higher volumes, we can transfer production to one of our lower cost production sites, such as Kwidzyn.”

Market opportunities

Electronic assemblies for the automotive industry currently account for some third of Lacroix Electronics’ output. Applications include auto lighting, instruments and communications, safety systems, engine control and driver comfort. Products for home automation (lighting, heating, alarms etc) and for industrial applications (automation and robotics, energy supply and all-terrain vehicles etc) each account for a quarter.

“One of our fastest growing markets today is aerospace. It currently accounts for only around 10 per cent of our business but we expect it to at least double in value in the next ten years,” says Mr Beauxis. “We currently supply assemblies for both civil and military aircraft, military communications, naval surveillance systems and intelligent munitions but we see the real growth coming as aircraft become ever more ‘electric’, with fly-by-wire control systems, passenger comfort and entertainment systems, electronic maintenance systems and so on. The latest airliners even have electrical systems to taxi on the tarmac. We supply many of the Tier One suppliers to the European aerospace industry and our proven capabilities in the design and production of electronic assemblies that have to function in extreme environments as well as our track

The cooperation between Lacroix and Mikrostyk S.A. has lasted for more than eight years. Our joint adventure has begun from small elements for the electronics industry, to develop a few years later with Lacroix the projects for the leaders on the market of suppliers of the first order in the automotive sector in such areas as vehicle lighting, sound systems, etc. Such brands as BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, PSA are final users of our products. For all these years we have developed a number of tools, from the smallest ones to several ton progressive tools on 500 ton presses. From several thousands of components produced per year, we went to several million parts, which required from us to adapt a very complex production processes to the most stringent quality aspects. It was necessary to implement a number of investments into new presses, automatic lines and to reorganize our way of functioning. Our relationship with Lacroix are sometimes stormy, but only purposes of our discussions are to motivate each other and to set the new goals to optimize processes and ensure the highest quality. This is required by our joint customers, so the standards must be raised every day! Thanks to these substantive discussions and cross-initiatives all the time we are thinking how to improve processes and accomplish the philosophy of Kaizen in our organization. Lacroix is our window on the international business, by its specificity and geographical locations it is much easier for them to reach the big industry players. We, in turn, offer them the local services on an international level. In other words, strict local cooperation allows us to achieve a global dimension. Creating a cluster within a common campus, connecting people who trust each other with a strong motivation for continuous improvement, we have the perfect primer to create the most competitive supply chain for our mutual customers.

record in project management and product support put us in an excellent position for further growth in this market.”

Lacroix is also currently reinforcing its market position in the medical sector and has recently joined the MedTech Pharma association, an organisation that aims to promote innovation and networking in the medical sector and highlight recent trends in medical and pharmaceutical technology. Lacroix Electronics already delivers customised services to many of the major players in the medical market as well as helping start-up companies in the design and industrialisation of innovative products.

For example, it is currently producing miniaturised electronic capsules for BodyCap, a start-up company in Lower Normandy. BodyCap’s innovative system, Anipill, is a device the size of a medical pill that when swallowed measures reliably and regularly the internal temperature of animals for the purposes of research or medical assessment. The data from one or several animals is transferred continuously by telemetry to a screen. Lacroix was able to use its rapid production line dedicated to prototypes for this project and to contribute its experience in complex project management and advanced product industrialisation. Later this year, BodyCap’s capsule will be certified for human use under the name e-Celsius.

Growth targets

Looking to the near future, Mr Beauxis says that Lacroix Electronics has a clear strategy for further growth: “The market for electronic assemblies is growing significantly and we plan to grow a little above the market trend – we think growth of 10 to 15 per cent a year is perfectly achievable. In fact our strategic objective is to become one of the top EMS companies in Europe by 2018 – we are currently around 10th – and to do this we will continue to improve and expand our total service offering to our customers. To succeed in today’s market you have to deliver not only excellence in design, development and production but also a comprehensive services right through from consulting to supply chain management and customer staff training.

“Of course, we will also ensure that we maintain our strategic balance between a variety of market sectors and the advantages of our low volume/high mix and high volume/ low mix production facilities in different countries. That is why the expansion of the Polish plant is such an important step for us.” n