Teknic assigns a factory-direct engineer to our Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) customers to supplement their design team with a motion control expert. Having worked on thousands of applications in various industries, Teknic's engineers have extensive practical experience to help ensure a successful integration. Here are some of the services we provide: Direct Technical Support.
For new product introductions, Teknic uses a platform approach that allows for incremental innovation, but retains backward compatibility. As part of this platform approach, Teknic bases new designs on our existing technologies and tries to use as many of our current product components in new designs as possible. This helps maintain parts availability because it limits the number of unique components that we need to worry about. It is also a main reason that Teknic has been able to keep a stable, short lead time and consistent pricing for years.
Platform manufacturing allows Teknic to continue building and supporting products for years and years. Most subassemblies run in high volume, as they support multiple products and many generations of each design. Since our newer products use many of the same components as our older products, there is no pressure on Teknic to obsolete older products even if they're running at low volume—the platform (consisting of the older products as well as newer, higher volume products) always runs at high volume even if individual models do not. This way, OEMs can upgrade to the next generation system or keep using the same Teknic part throughout their machine's production lifetime.
Additionally, many of our product upgrades and new features are firmware or software-based, meaning that our products can maintain the same physical form, fit, and function while still improving in performance. Products that are eventually displaced by the introduction of new technology are not simply discontinued—the components continue to be manufactured and supported for as long as parts are reasonably available. When products are forced into end of life, Teknic's factory engineers work with customers who desire to extend the life of their legacy machines with newer servo components. As one example, Teknic's SSt-1500 servo drive was available for nearly 30 years before the drive moved to end-of-life status.
Teknic, like most manufacturers, faces constant price pressure on materials. Yet, we've only increased prices once in over a decade. Our ongoing refinements in manufacturing process efficiencies, streamlined business systems, quality products that don't come back under RMA, and increased sales volume year after year, allows us to largely absorb raw material price increases while remaining financially sound. Here are the price stability details on our major products:
Manufacturing capacity, substantial raw material inventory, and multiple supply sources are the foundation of stable lead time. Teknic maintained the same stable, 4-week lead time from 1994 to 2021. As with other electronic manufacturers, supply chain disruptions following Covid-19 resulted in a temporary 6-15-week lead time, depending on the product; our supply chain strategies kept lead times significantly below competitors while still being able to keep up with record demand. Key strategies we use to minimize lead time disruptions include:
Teknic's highly reliable and robust products—virtually all with a three year warranty—are a result of rugged designs, inline and full functional manufacturing tests, and ongoing product and manufacturing refinement.
Teknic understands that many OEM companies go through several years of product development and testing before years of production. We know that motion systems are not commodities, and companies become reliant on vendors, so those vendors need to be around for the long haul. As a company, we've been in business since 1985, we have zero long term debt, and we have outstanding liquidity. Moreover, we design and build the products we sell, so we're not beholden to the whims or finances of another manufacturer. OEMs who visit our facility can see Teknic operators balancing rotors, honing motor housings, assembling motor cores, testing drive electronics, etc. You won't see people unboxing motors that were built elsewhere.
Teknic has produced a steady stream of state-of-the-art, proprietary motion control features making it easy for our clients' machines to perform at industry leading levels. These innovations include:
These features, along with others, are what help make Teknic's advanced automation products the superior choice when compared head-to-head against competing products in application after application.
