Nearly at the same time as the roofing ceremony for the first building of the factory extension, Kurtz Zhuhai Manufacturing Ltd. had another reason to celebrate: Sam Ho, Factory Manager, proudly announced the completion of the 1,000th “made in Zhuhai” reflow soldering machine. The first machine was delivered to a Chinese customer in July 2013. The recipient of the 1,000th machine, a Hotflow 3/26, was the Taiwanese EMS service provider Luxshare, for whom it was already the 63rd machine. Kurtz Ersa Asia is proud of the fact that its reflow soldering customers include many big names from the Chinese electronics industry – mainly from the sectors smartphone, telecommunications, automotive, IT, network and Internet of Things (“Smart Products”).
It is not uncommon for a single customer to have between 20 and 50 machines installed – impressive evidence of how satisfied users are with the quality and performance of the company’s machines and have therefore chosen KZM as a key supplier for their SMT production. Obviously, Kurtz Ersa´s hybrid machine strategy was well received by customers. Hybrid means the synergy of German engineering and the company’s quality standards combined with the advantages of local procurement and production. In this way, the user receives machines that meet the highest demands, can be delivered quickly and at the same time offer an attractive price/performance ratio. In the meantime, more than ten different Hotflow variants are being built in China, and the number of customer-specific modifications is constantly increasing. This represents one of the greatest challenges for the manufacturing team, as standard delivery times in Asia are only four to six weeks. Accordingly, KZM now has its own small development and design department that deals with product improvements. “The success of the KZM reflow soldering system is primarily due to the close cooperation between the Ersa employees in Wertheim and KZM Zhuhai and to the high motivation of their production team,” emphasized Bernd Schenker, Managing Director of Kurtz Ersa Asia. Currently, up to 50 machines are produced in Zhuhai each month – the order books are very well filled for the coming months as well.”
A challenge is the parallel expansion and construction of the new factory on the their site. “The current situation is already a great burden for all employees, suppliers and logistics partners. Flexibility is the order of the day. We are all very much looking forward to our new production halls. At least in Zhuhai, nothing will stand in the way of the target of 1,000 machines per year,” Sam Ho and his team are looking forward to the completion of the new factory, which is to be occupied in July 2019.
