Automation plays a critical role for today’s manufacturers, offering many benefits such as improved productivity and quality, with faster turnaround times and lower labor costs. However, it’s not always practical to automate production. For these cases, a hybrid approach is a better way to go. Today, we’ll take a look at this method, and learn how our customers benefit from it.

The Challenges of Automation

Manufacturers may be faced with several challenges when attempting to fully automate their production processes such as:

• Implementation costs – The process of designing, building, installing, and programming automated production lines can be considerably expensive, often requiring millions of dollars.
• Reduced Flexibility – leaves manufacturers unable to respond to changes in demand or product design, due to the complexity involved with modifying automation lines.
• Slower Time to Market  – in addition to the high costs of implementing automation, the process does take time – several months and possibly years. This further reduces flexibility, and the ability to quickly reclaim investments made.
• Limitations – certain processes such as micro-soldering, ultra precision welding for miniature components, and complex multi-component assembly may often not be suitable for automated methods

For instance, soldering microscopic wires for miniature medical components such as hearing aid chargers or blood test analysis cards is prohibitively expensive to automate. While production robots could theoretically perform these tasks, the costs for setup and programming make manual assembly the more practical and economical solution.

Solving These Challenges

These obstacles may be overcome by using skilled labor in the process. However, US manufacturing has been facing significant labor shortages along with higher labor costs. DNI’s integrated supply chain and nearshore manufacturing are hugely beneficial.

At Deringer-Ney, we use a hybrid approach to make complex contact assemblies. It starts with component manufacturing in our North Carolina and Connecticut facilities. These parts are then shipped to our Nogales, Mexico facility where skilled technicians perform the assembly work. The completed assemblies are then packaged and shipped directly to the end customer or contract manufacturer according to the customer’s requirements

Customer Benefits from This Approach

This integrated approach delivers many benefits to our customers as follows:

• Improved Quality Control – companies often rely on many suppliers to produce complex contact assemblies. Conversely, we are a single source for our customers, from material all the way through design, component manufacturing, and assembly. By keeping everything with one supplier, our certified quality systems ensure conforming components and assemblies.
• Rapid Deployment – manual assembly lines take just weeks to be set up, compared to the much longer time needed for automation installation
• Workforce Flexibility – the availability of a larger number of workers enables capacity to increase or decrease quickly in response to needs.
• Decreased Capital Investment – reduced upfront costs compared to automated options
• Faster Time to Market – customers can bring out products sooner without having to wait for automated systems to be designed and installed. Design changes can typically be implemented much quicker as well.

Conclusion

For manufacturers facing today’s complex market demands, a hybrid US-Mexico model operating under USMCA, provides the ideal balance between cost efficiency and high quality. By combining precision component manufacturing in US facilities with skilled manual assembly. In Mexico, DNI can deliver solutions that address the limitations of both fully automated and fully offshore approaches. This strategic approach gives you the ability to speed up time-to-market without sacrificing quality or control.

By partnering with a single supplier that manages the entire material-to-assembly process, you eliminate the complications and communication barriers that plague fragmented supply chains. The result is a manufacturing solution that combines American innovation and quality standards with the flexibility and cost advantages of nearshore manual assembly—an optimal long-term strategy for products that require both precision and adaptability.