The RESCO Electronics Blog

I am excited to announce that on June 1, 2020 RESCO Electronics completed its acquisition of Madison, Wisconsin based Convenience Electronics, Inc. (“CEI”).  CEI was founded in 1989 by Harry Lum and has grown to be one of the premier cable and electromechanical assembly manufacturers in the Midwest.  CEI’s culture of putting its customers first coupled with a relentless focus on continual improvement fit well with RESCO.  Convenience’s emphasis on customers in the medical equipment and technology industries also matches well with RESCO’s concentration in these same areas.                                                                                                                                                                     CEI Production Floor                   

I am excited to announce that RESCO Electronics has been awarded as a Top Workplaces 2019 by The Baltimore Sun. The Sun made the award based on employee feedback gathered through a third-party survey administered by Energage, LLC, a leading provider of technology-based employee engagement tools. The anonymous survey measured several aspects of workplace culture, including alignment, execution, and connection, just to name a few.  Based on the rankings published by the Sun, RESCO placed 11^th in its small business category out of 91 small companies receiving the award and countless others that were considered.

As you may be aware, RESCO Electronics has been around for quite a long time.  In fact, RESCO was founded way back in 1932 as Radio Electric Service Company.  Over its 87 year history, RESCO has been involved with many customers in many different projects.  Perhaps no single project was of the historic significance as was RESCO’s involvement in the Apollo 11 LM camera system.  As our nation celebrates the 50^th anniversary of mankind’s first trip to the moon, the team at RESCO looks back with pride on this accomplishment and its small, yet important, contribution.

I am excited to share with you that last October RESCO moved into its new home in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico.   You may be thinking why wait six months before writing a blog about this new facility?  Well, the short answer is that we didn’t want to make a big to-do about our new place until the move was complete and most all the transition pains were behind us.  In other words, we didn’t want to be too quick to brag.  Now that the move is behind us and things are running smoothly, brag we will!  So here are some particulars about our new home, our staff and Acuna, Mexico.

No doubt most of you are aware that the US placed a 25% tariff on certain electronic components and other products manufactured in China effective July 6, 2018.  These tariffs were announced last month by the US Trade Representative (USTR) and are being imposed pursuant to Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 in retaliation for what the US views as the unfair trade practices of China.

One of the hardest things to do is to listen.  Most of us are wired to talk and do it quite well.  We are quick to offer our ideas, our solutions, our way to do this or that.  Although God blessed us with two ears and we hear just fine, most of us really struggle to listen.  And by “listen” I mean to take the time to hear and really understand the ideas and concerns of others. 

RESCO will celebrate its 85^th year in business this year.  Our company started back in 1932 as a parts supplier to radio and, a few years later, TV repairmen.  By the 1960s RESCO had transformed itself into a distributor of electronic components to manufacturers.  More recently we have become a contract manufacturer of electronic assemblies and value-added reseller of bar code equipment.  Although the focus of our business has certainly changed over the last eight and a half decades (and will necessarily continue to change), one thing has been a constant…the hard work and dedication of our team.

Ever since Donald Trump’s unexpected win last November I have been inundated with questions about the future of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and Mexico as a manufacturing supply source for the United States.  There is no doubt that the rhetoric used during the campaign and reiterated since the election is decidedly anti-NAFTA.  Trump has left no question about his feeling on NAFTA; famously stating that it was “the worst trade deal in history”.  All this being said, I think it premature to pen NAFTA’s obituary.

Now that we are in the middle of a Presidential campaign the rhetoric is flying on a whole host of issues.  This election cycle the issues of trade, trade agreements, and American jobs have become some of the most hotly debated.   My intent in this blog is not to make a political statement but rather to offer a perspective regarding trade with Mexico that has been all but drowned out by the political fervor.   I want to share with you why I believe that our trade relationship with Mexico has actually helped preserve and perhaps even grow jobs in the US.  Although I will cite a few statistics and comments from experts below, my belief fundamentally comes from what we at RESCO see taking place at many of the US manufacturers that we support.

Of all the different inventory management systems in which we have had the opportunity to participate, kanban may be the most consistently effective; especially from the manufacturer’s point of view.  At RESCO we have supported vendor managed inventory, consigned inventory, bonded inventory, and a variety of dock-to-stock programs.  But consistently the kanban based systems have been the easiest to manage and the most consistently effective.