Made-in-the-USA Magna-Power Electronics awarded manufacturing accolade

xTuple is pleased to share some exciting news: long-time customer Magna-Power Electronics is the recipient of the 2016 New Jersey Manufacturer of the Year Award, presented at the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program, Inc. (NJMEP) Manufacturing Day Event on October 7, 2016.

Magna-Power Electronics designs and manufactures robust programmable DC power products that set industry standards for quality, size and control. Their highly reputable, market-leading power electronics products can be found around the world feeding power to national laboratories, universities, and a wide range of industrial sites. 

And Magna-Power stands behind their “Made in the USA” credo: All engineering, new product design, manufacturing and North America product servicing is required to be of higher quality and performance, less expensive, and delivered faster than its competition — and it must be performed at the company's headquarters in New Jersey.

Celebrating their 35th anniversary in 2016, Magna-Power was facing increasing pressures from low-cost foreign manufacturing and chose to systemically in-source operations as opposed to out-source. Internal manufacturing processes include: sheet metal fabrication, machining, powder coating, printed circuit board assembly, magnetics winding, cable harnessing and final testing.

Through strategic investment in new machinery, employee training, and new facilities and processes, Magna-Power is thriving in a global marketplace through its vertically integrated approach, considered somewhat unconventional in today’s manufacturing environment.


We called to congratulate Adam Pitel, Vice President of Operations at Magna-Power, on their Manufacturer of the Year Award and to learn more, including what impact, if any, xTuple has had on the business:

“Vertical integration has provided Magna-Power full internal control of quality, cost, and lead-time. And the advantage of a family-owned and financed company is that decisions can be made for long-term financial gains, without having to satisfy short-terms demands from outside investors. Strategic investments in resources, both people and capital equipment, can be made with longer payback period, using the company’s profits for financing. For Magna-Power, the goal is to be debt-free and to make expenditures for a one year return-on-investment.”

“One of the most cost-effective business tools we use day-in and day-out to run our operations is xTuple ERP.  As it’s open source software, we have the flexibility to extend the functionality to meet our needs; we're not constrained by the software. The price of xTuple is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of half-million dollar machines we use.”

“All of our products are made to order; that’s thousands different configurations of our products — and they all require a quick turnaround for us to stay competitive. Using xTuple open source ERP has helped us run and grow our business.”

Congratulations to Magna-Power Electronics on their Manufacturer of the Year Award!

As xTuple is headquartered in Norfolk, Va., home to the world’s largest naval base, it gave us immense pleasure to learn that the newest generation of the largest and most technologically advanced surface warship — U.S. Navy destroyer USS Zumwalt — hit the high seas with Magna-Power DC power supplies on board.

xTuple is a champion of the NIST MEP network (National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership), of which the NJMEP* is a part, as they work to strengthen U.S. manufacturing. We are also a member of NIST MEP’s Manufacturing Day co-producer FMA (Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, International).

* NJMEP is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization affiliated with The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), a network of nearly 60 MEP centers across the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

Photo credits: Magna-Power Electronics

 

Wally Tonra

Vice President Sales

Wally has been with xTuple since 2004 and in ERP sales since the mid-1990s. After all that time selling vendor-centric, proprietary enterprise software, moving to an open source, Mac-friendly ERP package was a natural evolution. Prior to xTuple, Wally spent 10 years at JD Edwards, which was eventually acquired by Peoplesoft, in various sales and sales management positions. He made the move to xTuple before Oracle took over both Peoplesoft and the former JDE. Prior to JD Edwards, Wally held sales positions at ERP software company Daly.commerce (formerly Daly and Wolcott), hardware supplier XL/Datacomp and storage vendor EMC. Wally holds a B.S. from Boston College, where the Mac fanaticism all began.