Tritek Hosts Open House at Advanced West’s Facility

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

In this recent conversation with I-Connect007’s Andy Shaughnessy and Barb Hockaday, Steve Kenney, president of Tritek and Advanced West, discusses their long history serving the PCB industry, dating back to when Tritek sold Shipley chemistry in Southern California. 

During this interview, recorded minutes before an open house at Advanced West in Corona, California, Steve underscores the company’s customer-centric culture and their drive to meet customers' changing requirements in the PCB space.

Andy Shaughnessy: Steve, it’s good to meet you. Walk us through the background of Advanced West and Tritek. 

Steve Kenney: Tritek has a long history, with 30+ years serving the PCB industry. We started out selling Shipley chemistry, which through acquisition has become DuPont to PCB fabricators. And anyone who knows this space knows that 30 years ago in Southern California, you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a PCB shop. It was a wonderful time to start a business in that space.

Fast forward about 20 years, and the company did a really good job of staying up to date with modern technology, trying to keep up with their customer base. Four years ago, I had the pleasure of becoming a part owner of Tritek and became the president. One of the things we knew we wanted to do was diversify. Instead of just being a PCB chemical company, we started looking at our resources. We had a lot of technical folks that knew something about laminate materials. So, we began a relationship representing  AGC Nelco on the laminate side. Tritek also has a very long relationship with Chemcut, another proud U.S. manufacturer who we have represented for a long time. 

Then we thought about how and why PCB customers buy chemistry and equipment together. When Advanced West became available for us to acquire, it seemed to make really good sense for our customers. And that's the one thing I really hope people take away. Tritek's focus has always been on what's right for our customers.

I know it's a slogan and a lot of people say, “Customers are at the center of everything we do,” but for us, we live it all the time. The purchase of Advanced West three years ago really was for that. We have customers who come to us all the time with equipment issues or challenges or restricted capital budgets. We saw a niche that we could fill, use our chemical expertise, match it with our equipment expertise, and become more valuable for our customer base.  So for us, it's been a learning curve, of course, but I think we now provide much more value for our customers.

Shaughnessy: Tell us about Advanced West. 

Kenney: Advanced West had very humble beginnings. It is another company that has served the PCB space for over 25 years. At that time, Advanced West was really an equipment refurbishment company. They would buy, refurbish, and resell used equipment. They grew from that and expanded their expertise.

Then Advanced West acquired the COMAC brand, which was well-known in the PCB space. It was mostly rinsers and dryers and equipment like that, but they were focused on constantly evolving. Much like Tritek’s path, Advanced West was doing the same thing in equipment, saying, “Hey, what do our customers need?” We've now expanded COMAC beyond just rinsers and driers. And we still do a lot of secondhand equipment. So, the evolution has been very powerful. 

Another evolutionary step for us is we now offer fully automated process lines. This was something we were not able to do before but we've made a conscious effort to see what else we needed to provide to best serve our customers who were seeking automation.

Shaughnessy: Are you working with auctions much?  

Kenney: We don't participate in auctions very much. It's an interesting thing. There was a time in the PCB space when there were so many auctions that there was a lot of equipment to buy and someone who could do that well could make a good business out of it. Those dynamics have changed. The auctions are fewer and farther between, and there is much more competition. There's not a lot of room for anyone to go buy at auction price, put time and effort into it, and then resell it. PCB customers are smart. They know a good deal when they see it. They don't mind buying used equipment, bringing it to their shop, and letting their maintenance group work it.

For us, we stay in our lane with new COMAC equipment, Chemcut equipment, and then refurbished high-end equipment. Maybe it's laser drill or cut sheet laminators. We still do a lot of wet process refurbishment. In the old days, it was almost a competition between Advanced West and Chemcut. But when we purchased Advanced West, we sat down with Chemcut and said, “How do we do this together?” We work together now in a way that serves our customers well. If they need a secondhand solution because capital is tight, Chemcut understands that and maybe Advanced West fills that gap. But if not, Tritek sells them new equipment from Chemcut. I'm fine either way, because for us, whatever the customer wants is what matters. We take great pride in the fact that we have an open relationship with our manufacturing partners. It's been very smooth.

Shaughnessy: Do you have a sweet spot? 

Kenney: Our sweet spot is when customers come to us and say, “Hey, we can't find X anywhere. Can you help us?” And our response might be as simple as, “I know a PCB shop elsewhere that has one. They don't use it. Let me call them and see if they'd sell it to you,” all the way up to a customer wanting something like a COMAC machine, but it has to do these seven things that the COMAC machine doesn't currently do. So, we'll sit down again at a table and have them explain all the things they want. The greatest skill we have is our willingness to say, “What can we do to help?” Since we have such a big network, we know where all the equipment is in the country, and we can help customers get what they're looking for. I would say our sweet spot is really when a customer doesn't know what else to do, they pick up the phone and call someone from Tritek or Advanced West and we find a way to help them. 

Barb Hockaday: Are your techs doing the refurbishing? 

Kenney: Yes, most of the time, we buy equipment secondhand, we bring it to the shop, and we put it through all of its paces. We sell all of our equipment with a warranty. We stand behind our second-hand equipment. We put the time in and make sure the machines run exactly the way the customer wants. 

Shaughnessy: You're the connector, as Malcom Gladwell would say. You know where all the equipment is, you know the people. 

Hockaday: You’ve been doing this a long time, Steve. What is your philosophy around sales? 

Kenney: One of the lessons I learned a long time ago from some very smart salespeople is that if you really do care about what the customers want, it will show, and they will want to buy from you. If you have created a relationship of trust, they know that, at the end of the day, you're not going to steer them wrong. Why would I do that? That relationship keeps us viable. We take it very seriously.

Shaughnessy: What is the purpose of this open house today? 

Kenney: We purchased Advanced West three years ago. To this day, I still get people who say, “I heard Advanced West closed a few years ago.” Nope, we didn't, but a lot's changed. We moved from the building that they were in for a long time to a new location in a new town. We have a new website. I’d been thinking about the idea of an open house for a while and decided it's time to pull the curtain back and show everyone who we are, where we are, and most importantly, all we are doing.

Customers can come in and see the equipment in person. Yes, you can make a brochure. You can have a great website, etc.  But I can tell you that today, there will be a great deal of customers who send operator-level staff to check out the machines, where the decision makers say, “We have the money, but I can't buy it unless my lead operator likes the machine.” 

Shaughnessy: Did you say you build the COMAC stuff here?

Kenney: Yes. The frames are either steel or fiberglass and we make those here. We don't build pumps and motors. We buy some things locally, but when you go outside and look at a COMAC machine, even the fiberglass bodies are made here in California.

Pretty much everything's fabricated right here in California. We have a lot of U.S. manufacturing partners. I have always believed in U.S. manufacturing. Our partners align with that strategy. DuPont makes their chemistries here in the U.S. AGC makes their materials in Arizona. Chemcut makes all their equipment in Pennsylvania. When purchasing Advanced West became an opportunity and I found that they make a majority of their equipment here, it was a great fit for us. So, we worked hard to bring them into the Tritek business.

Hockaday: How do you acquire new business, or are you focused more on just continuing to grow the current business that you have? 

Kenney: Both. We can grow our business by expanding our territory with existing products in our portfolio or expand outside the PCB industry.  For us, even though the PCB industry is not growing as fast as we would like, we still have a lot of different ways that we can grow our company. We're constantly looking for opportunities. One of our limiting factors right now is finding and retaining talent.  

Shaughnessy: That is something that so many companies are struggling with. Steve, thank you for having us at your facility and showing us around. Congratulations on the open house.

Kenney: Thank you both for coming out. 

To see a video of Advanced West's capabilities, click here.