Precision Cable Assemblies LLC (PCA), a Brookfield manufacturer of battery cables and ground straps, wire harnesses and other wire assemblies, broke ground last week for construction of a new 82,000-square-foot facility in Sussex. When the project is finished, PCA will move its manufacturing and headquarters from Brookfield to the new building.
The new facility is being built on a 19-acre plot in a former farm field on Town Line Road in Sussex between Lisbon and Silver Spring drives, adjacent to a small business park. The site includes room for a 40,000-square-foot expansion, said Bill Harwood, chief executive officer of PCA.
The company’s cables, straps, harnesses and other assemblies are made for original equipment manufacturers such as John Deere, Ariens, Kohler and Briggs & Stratton, who make products in the lawn and garden, recreational water and snow vehicle and power generation markets. PCA does not serve the automotive industry.
The new facility is needed because of PCA’s dramatic sales increases and growth in recent years, said Richard Horky, president of the company. PCA had $20 million in revenues in 2007, a 100-percent increase since 1999. That pace of growth will continue in 2008, with contracts with three new customers coming online, Horky said.
“We’ll be bursting (at the seams) here (in Brookfield),” he said. “We anticipate adding about 10 percent more employees in 2008, probably about 15 people.”
PCA has about 150 employees in its Brookfield facility now. The company has a 70,000-square-foot facility in Qingdao, China, which employs 170 workers, Horky said. PCA also has a small distribution facility in Logansport, Ind., with five workers.
PCA’s number of employees in its Brookfield facility has risen by 25 to 30 percent since the company opened its manufacturing facility in China.
The new Sussex facility is about five miles from PCA’s Brookfield building, Harwood said. Once PCA moves, Badger Wire, a subsidiary of PCA that makes extruded wire in about 16,000 square feet of its facility, will expand into the Brookfield building.
Badger Wire was founded 1989 to supply PCA with extruded wire components, Harwood said.
About 30 percent of Badger Wire’s business is in supplying PCA, Horky said, but it’s grown a significant number of other clients in recent years. Badger Wire had about $14.5 million in revenues in 2007, more than doubling its $7 million revenues in 2005, he said.
Badger Wire has eight employees now, Horky said, and could grow by another 10 workers by the end of 2008. The company’s expansion, new equipment and lines of products should be in place by the end of the year.
The company anticipates approximately 20-percent revenue growth this year, Horky said, largely through expanded offerings to customers.
Once it moves into PCA’s space, Badger Wire will manufacture UL-listed wire, a grade of wire that is used in the power and building industry, said Andrew Harwood, regional sales manager for Badger Wire and PCA.
Badger Wire will also start stranding its own wire once it expands, Bill Harwood said. The company now purchases stranded wire and runs its coatings over the top of it, he said.
The wire industry, like many others that serve the OEM market, is undergoing significant consolidation now, Harwood said. That consolidation has turned into opportunity for PCA and Badger, he said.
“There are a number of large companies out there that we don’t feel service our customers as well as we can service them,” Harwood said. “We’ve got some very quick turnaround times.”
“The industry standard is four weeks,” Andrew Harwood said. “And I can’t say we’ve ever shipped anything in over two weeks.”
