Partnering for synergy

The Partner Companies (TPC) (www.thepartnercos.com) is a Chicago-based global network of specialty manufacturers serving aerospace, defense, energy, medical, technology, and telecom industries. A complementary set of contract manufacturers, the 10 companies offer expertise in photochemical etching, thin metal forming, ceramic metallization, welding, CNC machining, assembly, optical electroforming, and injection molding. A specialty of one company, Lattice Materials, is growing custom silicon and germanium crystals in the United States for optics, thin film materials, laser mirrors, and semiconductor parts.

I was curious to know what synergy exists between the companies, and Scott Bekemeyer, TPC founder and co-chairman, explained.

“The companies started by operating independently, and we treated them autonomously. But the more we collaborated, the better we all performed together. We learned 40% of our business resulted from a combination of the companies getting together to serve a customer.”

Synergy extends across industries, too. Beckemeyer notes, “We make an electron gun, used in medical applications for radiation therapy, to battle cancer. A variation of that electron gun can also be used as a propulsion device in satellites. The NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which flew a satellite into an asteroid to knock it off its trajectory in the event Earth ever needs to be saved – that was our engine.”

All the TPC entities are subject to the forces affecting all manufacturers, from supply chain issues and market changes to the need for workforce development.

On the topic of whether increased emphasis on defense will squeeze the supply chain for commercial aerospace, TPC CFO Christian Streu says, “We see the shift from commercial to defense, and we’ve seen rationing of a lot of different types of raw materials, titanium in particular, impacting all of our aerospace business.”

One acute impact of the global supply chain affects germanium, useful in lenses for defense applications due to its broad infrared transmission range. Travis Wood, GM of Lattice Materials, says, “Germanium is a byproduct of the mining process. It’s abundant, it’s everywhere in the world, but the capabilities to process and refine it, that’s where the gap is. There’s funding in amplifying domestic capabilities to be self-sufficient in the next 10 years.”

For workforce retention, Wood says, “We have many efforts dedicated to building a safety culture, career development, paid sponsorships for continuous education certifications, and investing in our employees. We’re spending a lot of time on the culture because if we have a faulty foundation, we can’t grow.” Wood adds, “For attracting good talent, it’s awareness. We’re beefing up our marketing, partnering with local academic entities, and starting to fill that funnel.”

Bekemeyer says, “Keeping people excited is all about career development, skills, culture. We partner with our employees, and we want them to succeed. If you take a people-centric focus, you’ll develop a great culture, and people will come and work with you for the long term.”

Good advice, whether you have one shop or many. – Eric