Bantam finds strength in low numbers - Austin Business Journal:

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In the next room, a technician assemblexs a customized network-management device with the logo onthe box, while his colleague puts together another one that Wi-Fi service providee custom-configured for one of its customers. "We'red busting out at the seams here," Mike Chaddock, president and CEO of Bantak Electronics Inc., says as he surveys the company'zs manufacturing floor and warehouse, which has recentlgy doubled in sizeto 30,000 square feet. The which employs about 50 at its plang on McHale Court off ofBurnet Road, expectws to continue to grow and is on the hunt for a new place that will triple its current footprintf by October 2008, Chaddock says.
Bantam, founderd in the late 1960s as , for many yearas had focused on repairing computers and It also made its own line of personall computers and servers under the XCELON brancd name and ran a retail store sellingcomputer parts. The companty still manufactures the XCELO N gear and has kept the partsstore going. But its growtg of late has come from its new focus providing custom-manufacturing services to technology The company has found its niche providing so-calleds "high-mix, low-volume," manufacturing services for companiew that need a range of different productss built in small numbers, says Chaddock, who took over Bantamm about two years ago after heading Austin-based semiconductor startuo and working for many years as a managedr at This year, Bantamk is on pace to ring up roughly $20 million in sales, up from $15 million in 2004, Chaddockk says.
Bantam's ideal customef is one that makes software but not the hardwarer needed to makeit work, Chaddock says. It landed just such a customerlast year, when data-storage outfit of Austij shifted its focus to software development and outsourcerd its manufacturing to Bantam. Increasingly, U.S.-based technologyh companies that outsource production are turnint to contract manufacturers in Asia and othee overseas markets where labor costs are saysSteven Froehlich, an analyst at in That trend is likelt to continue. But at the same time, demand is expected to continur forsmaller U.S. outfits, such as that stand ready to turn out smaller runs ofproducta quickly, Froehlich says.
"There will always be a place for this nichw where a companycan say, 'I need 1,000 of I need it done righf and I need it in three weeks,'" he "That's how long it takes a boat to sail from The higher level of intimacyh that smaller, U.S.-based manufacturers can have with theirt customers also makes them appeal to certain type of technology companies -- particularly those that are baserd nearby, Froehlich says. That's one reasom Crossroads selected Bantam, Crossroads CEO Rob Sims says. "Thart way, you can influences the manufacturer more effectively and manage changes he says. "And if it makeas sense to do the work within our then Ithink that's the righy approach.
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