From a small PCB factory in 1995 to a full-service electronic manufacturing company — discover our journey of growth, innovation, and excellence.
Since our founding in 1995, Circuitronics has continuously evolved and expanded our capabilities to meet the changing needs of the electronics industry.
Circuitronics opened for business at its Casselberry, Florida location which was acquired from another electronics company. The factory acquisition also included several machines as well as trained employees. The Casselberry factory capabilities included production of printed circuit boards up to 20 layers in small to medium volumes. Several new machines were purchased and new employees were hired throughout the year.
Our Casselberry location proved to be too small for our volume of manufacturing. We soon acquired a new location in an industrial park in Sanford, Florida. The building was an empty 15,000 square foot warehouse so extensive construction would need to take place in order to facilitate all the requirements and infrastructure for making circuit boards. Meanwhile production continued as normal at the Casselberry location.
The new Circuitronics factory opened its doors in January 1997. The factory was complete with a brand new electroless plating line and complete waste water management system. Also a new laser plotter was purchased along with several other production enhancing machines. The new factory was now capable of large volume runs and production of complex circuit boards.
With the help of the brand new factory and expanded production capabilities Circuitronics had reached $2,000,000 in annual sales revenues. This increase in revenue was essential to the future of Circuitronics as a significant amount of capital investment was made during the construction of the new factory. Sales expanded from the Central Florida region to all parts of the state.
In an effort to further increase revenue Circuitronics selected to offer a small range of engineering services. Services included product upgrades due to obsolete parts and basic product development. One of our first designs included an automated waste water management system which is still in use at water treatment plants today.
To improve quality Circuitronics needed to focus on key areas in the quality control process. A new flying probe tester was purchased to allow for all circuit boards to be fully tested before leaving our facility when required. Until now all boards requiring electronic testing needed to be outsourced to a local third-party company. Other equipment was also purchased bringing the total capital investment to approximately $250,000.
Up until now most all orders were taken via phone, fax, or mail. New advancements in technology such as 56K modems were now available to the general public. To better assist our customers we now provided an email address (cirqtronic@aol.com) from which customers could communicate with us as well as send us files needed for the production of circuit boards.
The www.circuitronicscorp.com domain was purchased in August of 1999 and a very simple 1 page website was put up then just quickly outlining our services and showing our contact information. We now upgraded the site to a multipage site with a quick quotation form which reduced the time needed to generate a quote.
A significant amount of Data was now being sent in digital form and the old server was only capable of holding approximately 1 GB of data over a 4 disk Raid Array. Digital storage space was quickly filling up so a new Dell Server was purchased capable of storing 250 GB in a Raid-5 Array. The server was also equipped to handle viruses and unauthorized access using firewalls. This ensured our customer’s proprietary information would be safe and we would be able to handle the large influx of digital files in the years to come.
New standards in the electronic industry and a movement toward ‘green’ technologies led Circuitronics to adopt a Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive otherwise known as RoHS. The directive involved prohibited the use of 6 hazardous substances in the production process most importantly lead which was very common in the solder used to secure components to the circuit boards. This directive played an important role as Circuitronics was now being contracted by customers in Europe and RoHS was a major requirement for the EU.
This marked one of the most important years in Circuitronics history. Circuit board prices were on the decline due to the low cost printed circuit boards being produced by overseas manufacturers. A major change in the company’s core capabilities needed to take place otherwise the company would begin to lose profit in the next few years. The next logical step was to move toward circuit board assembly and electronic engineering. The decision was made by management that we would soon shift our focus to a more profitable sector of the electronic manufacturing process.
By 2006 the company was completely restructured. A majority of the circuit board manufacturing equipment was moved to another location in part of a business partnership. The capital was then reinvested into the company and a brand new German manufactured Surface Mount Production Line was purchased. This production line allowed us to produce complete circuit board assemblies with great quality and rapidly. Many new employees were hired and trained to work on the new machines as well as in other parts of the new production process.
A new marketing strategy was implemented including a new website, logo, brochure, and various other marketing materials. The new website and marketing campaign was launched by the end of the year to reflect the new services being offered by Circuitronics Corporation and to attract new clients. Individual emails were also made for each of the employees to better facilitate customer interaction. New computers, a T1 data connection, a new phone system, and a 24 hour video surveillance system were installed. Technologically Circuitronics was now up to par with other much larger electronic manufacturers. We were now also a certified minority owned business for the City of Orlando.
Circuitronics was beginning to receive much larger volumes and many more projects at almost an exponential pace. With the level of production that was now being processed through the factory quality standards needed to be in place to ensure consistency, quality, efficiency, and traceability. With the help of outside consultants the ISO 9001:2000 international quality standard was implemented, audited and approved. Also a new selective solder machine was purchased which was capable of producing the same output as 6 solder technicians.
With the new ISO 9001:2000 in place quality was now at the forefront of Circuitronics core values. In order to further improve our level our quality and adhere to the quality standard we implemented a barcode system for every product or assembly that goes through our facility. This allowed for traceability and a greater control on batch processes. Also a brand new Automated Optical Inspection machine was purchased. Every assembly is now processed through the AOI instead of visual inspection which is prone to human error. The AOI and the new barcoding system significantly improved the level of quality.
This year marked another significant change in our production capabilities. After 2005 much of the heavy machinery and production lines needed for circuit board assembly have been decommissioned and sold off which left room for expansion in the future. In order to facilitate the increase in box build assemblies a new production line was set up for electro-mechanical assembly. This allowed Circuitronics to have complete vertical integration as now products could be designed, manufactured, assembled, and packaged for the end user for a one stop turn-key facility.
Since 2006 there had been a steady increase in the number of different products being manufactured and also the number of design projects being engineered. This year proved to be one of the most challenging as the both the number of product and design projects had doubled from the previous year. One of the most important contracts included a $1.7 million contract for 16 custom designed power supplies which was the monetarily the single largest contract we have signed.
This year marked the 5th year in a row that we have shown a significant increase in sales revenue. Even in a global economic recession Circuitronics continued to increase at an average rate of 8% per year. Engineering has now become the primary focus of Circuitronics. Many of the engineering services that were once outsourced have now become in house talents, including a Mechanical Engineer and Computer Engineer.
Circuitronics is now a member of IPC - Association Connecting Electronic Industries an industry-leading provider of worldwide standards for electronic design and manufacturing. Circuitronics now has Certified IPC Trainers on staff and all production employees are Certified IPC Specialists. This training has led to a companywide increase in quality, production, and overall workflow.
Highlighting the most significant moments in our journey of growth and innovation.
Started in Casselberry, FL
First major sales milestone
Complete restructuring
Industry standard compliance
Join Our Journey
As we continue to grow and innovate, we're looking for partners and clients who share our commitment to excellence.
