“We are running 13 facilities worldwide in total, one of them is our European headquarters, located near Munich since 1972.” Newly appointed VP Europe of Kester Solder, Jefferson King, stresses that he is not in Germany for a short-stand, but building solid relationships with a growing number of customers for soldering materials, adhesives, underfiller and encapsulants for modern electronic production. Those complex materials are used in advanced packages such as BGA, flip chip, CSP, wafer-level packaging and many more.
It becomes clear from this portfolio that besides the traditional strength in soldering supplies, the company has focused on virtually all kinds of key consumables which are necessary for electronics manufacturing. “We have four R&D (research and development) centers to qualify our products for applications in smaller and larger companies. They are in Europe, Singapore, Japan and the US”, underlines Jeff King, also pointing out that an effective after-sales support is the important link between R&D und their customers. But, as he further points out, the business isn’t easy, “There is turmoil in the market which is very tough now.” With the advent of sophisticated materials for advanced packages, the facility near Munich is gaining evermore importance in the company’s set-up of worldwide presence, providing seamless support to global as well as localized players. The staff in the European HQs is mainly engaged in pre and after-sales support.
For a better understanding of the background, just some explanations about the Kester Solder Division of Litton Industries. Products include solder pastes, flux cored and solid wire solders, solder preforms, bar solders, solder spheres, plating anodes, liquid fluxes, advanced polymer formulations, residue removers and cleaners, temporary solder masks and conductive inks. The service set includes solder recycling, solder analysis and a spectrum of technical support. Manufacture according to QS-9000 and ISO-9001 ensures high quality. The international headquarters operate from a 137,000 square foot facility located in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois.
The company was founded in 1899 as Chicago Solder to produce flux-cored solder. This patented process has had a major impact inthe electronics industry to this day. As the firm grew, it opened manufacturing facilities in Brant-ford, Ontario/ Canada and Anaheim/ California. In 1967, Litton Systems acquired the company. Kester recognized the importance of being a global supplier by establishing manufacturing facilities in Singapore. In 1990, Kester bought Blackstone Flux. To further extend the product line offering, Kester has taken over the as-sets of two divisions of the Gardiner Metals Company in 1995 – Gardiner Solder and Techform Laboratories. To handle the growing demand in Asia, facilities were opened in Taiwan (1992), Malaysia (1996) and the Philippines in 1998. Kester continued to expandin 1998 by acquiring the IEM solder paste product line from Fusion Incorporated and the assets of Cramco Solder Alloys in Canada. Again in 1999, Kester grew by acquir-ing Tarutin of Japan. A com-prehensive network of distributors and agents supports these manufacturing facilities. Gerhard B. Wolski
