Caz: Marquardt in driver's seat

Marquardt is in the driver’s seat
Upstate manufacturer has the business, needs more workers
By Willie Kiernan

Nestled along scenic Route 20 in the town of Nelson, Marquardt Switches has been a successful manufacturer for 25 years. While they used to predominantly produce switches for hand tools, appliances and computers, their recent focus towards the automotive industry has vaulted them into the future bringing about an urgent necessity for an increase of trained personnel. They have the jobs, but they need more workers to continue to grow.
After a $6 million infusion from their parent company in Germany, and establishing a presence in Detroit with a research and development office in Auburn Hills, Marquardt was able to sign contracts with Chrysler, BMW and Freightliner. The need for engineers and designers to be intimately attuned to the everyday assembly line activities and design alterations resulted in the Auburn Hills staff growing from five to more than twenty. The engineers send their designs from Michigan to Nelson where technicians build the machines to make the parts.
“What’s awesome here is that we’re designing and building our own assembly test equipment,” said Kirk Wardell, Director of Operations. “We have these robots and we have pick and place machines that we never had before. Two years ago when I started, none of that existed. We put in this conductive flooring, we put in this equipment and we hired all these folks who know how to design, build and troubleshoot. And the technology gap that we’ve shrunk in the last two years is astronomical.”
Opening in 1981, from a family business originating in Germany that has been expanding globally for 85 years, Marquardt now employs close to 300 workers and is looking for more. They need people who can interact with their machines and focus on details.
“Our parent company gave the directive, and said, we want the North American market to be the huge growth market for us. And they’ve invested several million dollars to help us do that - in equipment, with hiring people, and of course, innovation,” Wardell said. “In leveraging their technology and established relationships in the automotive market, through Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, VW, Audi; these are all customers they’ve had for a while. We’ve won these contracts and we’re building this equipment, and now we need the people to help us. We need people who are interested in more than just putting a switch together.”
Some of the employees in Auburn Hills are in sales, but most of them are in development. They take the customer specs and turn that into the design that is built here. Because Marquardt is not as large as many competitive manufacturers, they are able to go from design to actual prototype quicker, and then on to sign a contract. With the automotive industry operating years in advance, contracts are already signed for 2008 and beyond.
“The next significant step we’ve taken in our product line is that we’ve gone from making these individual components, these switches that basically turn things on and off, to switch banks that have this two-way communication thing going on with the car,” Wardell said. “Now we’re getting into driver authorization systems, where it’s a whole system. You have antennas, key fobs, the ignition module, passive entry start/stop button, where you don’t have to even put a key in. Just get in, press a button. It starts the car and away we go.”
Assemblage at Marquardt is a far cry from manufacturing in the past. They’ve recently purchased robots and tweaked them to do the jobs that were once done by human hands.
“It really is fascinating. You drive up and down Route 20 and you have no idea what’s happening inside these four walls. There’s a lot going on here in 70,000 sq. feet which is not a big footprint,” Wardell said.
Marquardt GmbH, the parent company, was founded in Rietheim Germany in 1925 by two men named Johannes Marquardt, unrelated. One was a merchant and the other an engineer. Today, they have expanded globally with additional factories in Germany, Switzerland, China, Tunisia, India, Romania and the US. They currently employ over 3,000 personnel around the world.
“We’re looking towards hiring more skilled people. Before this we had more manual assembly, and now we’re moving to more automated assembly. There are opportunities for our current employees, but many opportunities for new employees as well,” said Jeanette Tancredi, Manager of Human Resources. “That’s on the production side. On the other side, there are openings for test lab technicians, engineers, toolmakers, machine repair and all types of professionals as we grow.”
Marquardt offers a competitive compensation and benefit package with a 401K and medical, dental, disability and life insurance. They offer tuition reimbursement and a flexible-spending plan. They are looking for people with a four-year degree and experience in the automotive industry with attentiveness for detail.
“We feel we have a beautiful facility and a wonderful work environment here,” Tancredi said. “We have people commuting from Syracuse, Cortland, Norwich and as far as Auburn.”
“When you look at manufacturing in upstate New York, a lot of people get worried and concerned, and they should because there’s a lot of competition out there, in this country and out of this country,” said Michael Beckett, President of Marquardt. “This company has been successful in upstate New York and we’ve made a commitment to continue in upstate New York. We have a great, great future ahead of us right here in Madison County.”
The challenge that Marquardt has is people - finding the right people, attracting the right people, hiring the right people. They offer a bright, challenging and ultimately rewarding career in the field of manufacturing for the right person and are willing to train. Marquardt is not only surviving in upstate New York, they are thriving. Visit their web site at www.switches.com.

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