As the manufacturing industry strives for precision and excellence, Advanex Americas (Advanex) is continuing to exceed expectations with its range of custom springs and wire form production. The business was incorporated in Tokyo, Japan in 1946, 16 years after Inokichi Kato, the company\u2019s first president, founded a spring factory in the region.<\/p>\n
Its US operation, which was the first outside of Japan, began in 1971 in southern California, but relocated to Nashville, Tennessee in 2022. Today, Advanex operates manufacturing facilities throughout Asia, North America, and Europe, and is a publicly traded company on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of production, our US factory specializes in spring and wire form production but is supported by two sites in Mexico that also feature stamping and insert molding operations,\u201d begins Chad Wright, Vice President of Sales at Advanex. \u201cOur primary market is medical, for which we produce springs for medical drug delivery devices and oncology diagnostic devices.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe also produce springs and wire forms for the automotive industry, which are used for all sorts of applications from door latches and fuel pumps to braking systems and ignition coils. Our third segment is what we call office automation, comprising our work on commercial printers and toner cartridges, for companies across the globe. Believe it or not, we still make springs for disposable cameras here in the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough we serve those three markets, around 70-to-75 percent of our products are for medical devices,\u201d Chad tells us. \u201cOur medical customers were the motivation behind our relocation to Nashville too, as the move has not only brought us closer to such customers but has also enabled us to dedicate a site to the manufacturing of medical devices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elaborating on the decision to move to Nashville, Chad continues: \u201cOur new site is focused on the medical sector, whereas our California factory had a higher mix towards automotive production. We moved with the intent to create a dedicated medical production site, so we\u2019ve been able to tailor the new factory specifically towards our medical manufacturing processes, as opposed to retrofitting our old factory. It also enabled us to shed some legacy business that didn\u2019t fit our strategic direction moving forwards, enhancing our focus on medical springs and forms.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we produce such high volumes of product for the medical industry, we\u2019ve moved geographically closer to our customers to significantly shorten our transportation routes. When we started medical production, we were shipping one delivery of medical devices across the country each week but are now shipping around eight full trucks per week.<\/p>\n
Increasing production capabilities<\/strong> However, investment into the new site is not slowing down any time soon. \u201cThe 50,000-square-foot site sits on a 21-acre plot, so we\u2019ve got plenty of room for additional expansion and we\u2019re planning a major extension in 2024,\u201d Chad reveals. \u201cIn the meantime, we\u2019re investing in additional production equipment on a regular basis and exploring the possibilities of automation. \u201cWe pride ourselves on creating and maintaining strong working relationships with customers, so our current customers expect us to continue meeting increased production requirements as their businesses continually expand. We spend a lot of time on our customers\u2019 production floor with their technical personnel to better understand the role we can play in improving their overall efficiencies.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve developed global strategy teams for each sector to explore how we can best assist our customers as most of them have global customer bases. We set up manufacturing cells for each customer so we can produce the same parts consistently across the globe. This is also a form of risk aversion for us, as it means we can ramp up production at a different site if we run into any problems or delays, which also minimizes disruption for the customer.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThis means we\u2019ve dramatically reduced our transit time and been able to boost our customer service. To give you an idea, the transit time from California was around one week, but from our new site, we\u2019ve managed to reduce it to within one day.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/manufacturing-today.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2024\/01\/Advanex-Americas-219-Body-Image-2-300x212.jpg\")
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