Introducing Bourns, Proud Global Manufacturer of Components For Nearly Every Electronic Device We Touch |
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You may or may not have heard of Bourns®, but there is nearly a 100% chance you own a product that has Bourns components in it. The company is global, and they serve a variety of industries, including;
• Automotive Electronics - including sensors, overcurrent protection devices, controls, and discrete components.
• Test and Measurement - the company makes high-quality electronic components for such products as oscilloscopes, multimeters, calibration instruments, hardness testers and leak detectors.
• Industrial Automation - high volume commercial panel controls, precision potentiometers, trimming potentiometers and networks, as well as custom capabilities for numerous one-of-a-kind applications.
• Consumer Equipment - including trimming potentiometers, panel controls, chip resistors, chip arrays, rotary potentiometers, slide potentiometers, and switches. These products are well suited for a variety of consumer products such as smoke alarms, power tools, garage door openers, stereos, radios, and TV game units.
• Computers and Peripherals - From a single resistor network to USB port overcurrent protection, Bourns products are being designed-in by industry leaders in numerous key applications, such as power supplies and laptops.
• Telecommunications - Bourns’ new generation of products includes global positioning systems, modems, pagers, portable phones and telecommunications switching devices. Miniature panel controls from Bourns are used to adjust telecommunication light sources, volumes, frequencies and many other variable functions. The smallest trimming potentiometers in the industry are being used in many portable telecommunications applications.
• Portable Electronics - To address the need of portable electronics manufacturers to make their products increasingly smaller and more reliable, Bourns offers the most extensive line of small, sealed, and surface-mount components in our industry.
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Gordon Bourns, CEO of the company, says, “When my parents, Marlan and Rosemary Bourns, began working in their tiny garage in 1947, they could not have envisioned that their products would someday be found in automobiles, cellular telephones, notebook computers, and implanted x-ray sensors for cancer treatment. However, they succeeded by tackling some of the most challenging sensor and electronic component requirements of their day.”
He added, “After more than 65 years in business, Bourns continues to grow because of the company’s continued commitment to providing value for our customers. Bourns invests in innovative new products through development within Bourns and through strategic acquisition of companies or product lines.”
Continuing, Gordon elaborates, “I believe the electronic components of the future will be increasingly more complex through the integration of passive and active functions to provide complete subsystem solutions. With our global manufacturing and customer support capabilities, Bourns is uniquely positioned to tackle your demanding requirements and provide you the value you expect from a trusted business partner.
Today, Bourns is a worldwide company with sales and distributor locations in every hemisphere. While its worldwide headquarters is US based, in Riverside, California, the company has manufacturing and R&D facilities strategically positioned throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. All Bourns manufacturing facilities are ISO9001 certified, and the company has received ‘Supplier of the Year’ and ‘Preferred Supplier’ accolades from such companies as Bosch, Arrow, GM, Rockwell Collins, AT&T, and Lockheed Martin.
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We traveled to Bourns in Logan, Utah, for the interview, where the company’s Ceramics facility is housed. The Logan facility opened for business in 1978, nearly 40 years ago, and the entity’s manufactured components are all used for Bourns products.
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Neal Christensen and Eric Henderson, long-term employees of the company, were available for the interview. The two work in and manage the machine shop. Neal says, “Most people don’t work with carbide when they are machining parts. We do here at Bourns. And though many of our machines have stood the test of time (some being more than 20 years of age), the team at Bourns takes superior care of our machines, and they last longer than most others companies could expect.”
Eric says, “Last year, it was time to evaluate the purchase of a new EDM machine. We had a few different builders’ older machines in house, so we had some background on what to expect, and we knew what was important to our business.”
Neal added, ”The cost of the EDM machine, its technical capabilities (e.g. ability to thread, and to perform a fine finish), as well as support after the sale were key factors in our decision-making.” (For those of you unfamiliar with Logan, it is approximately 80 miles from Salt Lake City, and the trip during the winter months can be difficult — therefore local support was key to the Bourns team).
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The team found that one of the older EDM machines they owned no longer had any service from the builder. Eric says, “We know the Mitsubishi EDM well, and we know that they keep every one of their machines in their tech center – even their oldest models. When you have an issue with an older Mitsubishi, the service center can even diagnose it from their tech center, with the machine readily available.”
Neal says, “Not only was the Mitsubishi EDM, the MV1200-R Advance Plus we were purchasing better from a service perspective, it was also less costly than competitive machines.”
David Soares, Applications Engineer for Smith Machinery, distributors of the Mitsubishi DM machines, says, “The team at Bourns particularly valued the ‘Digital Matrix Sensor’ (DMX) that the Mitsubishi MV1200-R EDM offered. This is the feature that checks the efficiency of sparks 2 times a second and adjusts where the sparks are occurring. The fiber optic cables assist in allowing the machine to take this feedback to the control and drives in milliseconds and make the proper adjustments. This results in less wire breakage, better surface finish, faster cutting, and more efficient use of power and wire.”
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In fact, Neal and Eric found that for one job, where it used to take 160 hours (4 weeks), because they had to manually thread each hole, the new Mitsubishi reduced the time to run the job to 70 hours, and once set-up is done, most of the job is run unattended.
“We have been very pleased with Smith Machinery and our Mitsubishi MV 1200-R EDM”, Neal says. “We like that the MV series features new improvements in machine construction, auto-threading, internal machine communication, power supply technology and operating costs, and that it also includes a new, non-contact Cylindrical Drive System.”
Eric says, “Prior to purchasing the Mitsubishi MV1200-R, our lead time to our internal customers was about 4 weeks – and today we are turning products around in 3 days.”
The fact that Smith Machinery has served the industry through four generations of the Smith Family -- supporting manufactures and job shops in Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, -- helped Bourns select Smith Machinery for their machine tool supplier.
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Go to Bourns.com to learn more about this
very successful family-run global company.
Article courtesy of A2Z Metalworking
41 West Guest Avenue
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
Phone: 801-263-6403
Fax: 801-263-6404
Email: smc@smithmachinetools.com
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
Phone: 801-263-6403
Fax: 801-263-6404
Email: smc@smithmachinetools.com