Expanded capacity, maximum quality: Our BBA competence center in Steinach

At our Steinach headquarters, we’ve expanded our Box-Build (BBA) competence center. With an additional 330 m² of assembly space, we now have even more room for box-build assembly and efficient workflows.

To give an inside look at what the renovation entails, we interviewed Jsmael Stieger. As Head of Operations in Switzerland, he played a key role in the project. Jsmael talks about the strategic background, technical innovations, and the benefits of the new capacity for our customers.

First of all, we now have more space for box-build assembly, giving our customers the room they need for product-specific assembly lines. But that’s not all. We also used the renovation to optimize workflows and set new standards for how we handle new equipment assembly projects going forward. That makes our work more efficient, which ultimately benefits our customers because their projects are completed faster and more smoothly.

A key factor for expanding the BBA area was also that we gained more space in our circuit board assembly for further development. This is particularly important for secondary processes such as depaneling, gluing, and conformal coating, which we plan to optimize even further. In the future, this will allow us to offer our customers even more process reliability, quality, and efficiency at the highest level.

This is particularly interesting for our customers in the Aerospace & Defense and Medtech & Life Sciences industries. In Steinach, we maintain high quality and reliability standards, rely on stable processes, and manufacture precisely in accordance with ISO 13485 and EN9100. This is a crucial point, especially in these two industries.

The concept itself increases process reliability, in line with the principle of line clearance. Every device moves from one station to the next, with no mixing of different devices at a single station. This eliminates intermediate storage in the process and increases output. We maintain a clear overview and full transparency in production—everyone knows exactly what’s happening.

We eliminate buffer stock, which increases efficiency. At the same time, we reduce sources of error because devices are not mixed at a workstation. In the end, we achieve better output. Customers feel this directly—in the quality, in how quickly we bring products to market, and of course in cost efficiency.

Steinach is not an isolated site, it’s part of our global network. We are fully integrated into our worldwide platform, leveraging smart data chains and modern analytics tools. This ensures seamless operations and allows us to quickly adjust production volumes across other sites when needed.

Additionally, every site has its own strategic focus, including Steinach. Here, we concentrate on the Aerospace & Defense and Medtech & Life Sciences sectors. All our investments are aimed at serving customers in these industries even more effectively.

We can now drive innovation even more effectively and provide services along the value chain that are tailored precisely to customer needs. This increases flexibility and efficiency, which directly benefit our customers.

The most fun for me was having creative freedom on a blank canvas from start to finish—planning, problem-solving, implementation, all the way to the successful completion of the project.