Asian imports have threatened the domestic printed circuit board industry for much of its history.
For 25 years, Oakmont-based Triangle Circuits Inc. been able to weather the import threat and the downsizing of the U.S. circuit board industry, remaining a competitive regional maker of circuit boards.

But in a twist — when the hot-button issue of outsourcing, particularly of high-tech components like circuit boards, is a political hot potato –Triangle is supplementing its in-house manufacturing by becoming a broker of high-volume imported boards from Asia.

“We don’t want to go offshore. Our customers are taking us there,” said Bob Nahrwold, Triangle’s vice president and general manager. “There are many companies looking to cut costs by buying offshore, but the companies we deal with don’t have a clue in how to do that.”

Circuit boards, sometimes called motherboards, are the backbone of most electronic gear purchased by industry and consumers. They are the surfaces upon which electronic components are attached in virtually all electronic devices, from personal computers to MP3 players.

Although it still produces boards in its Oakmont plant, production volume there is flat.

The importing part of its business, however, is growing quickly, from about 5 percent of sales three years ago to approaching 15 percent today.

Walter Custer, president of Custer Consulting Group of Sea Ranch, Calif., said Triangle’s move into circuit board importing isn’t unusual.

“Many niche/regional players are importing boards for their customers while offering value-added services such as designing prototypes and providing quality control on finished boards,” he said.

Triangle Circuits is the oldest subsidiary of a holding company, Millenia Group Inc.

In the late 1990s, the company reorganized into three operating divisions under the Millenia Group umbrella– with Triangle Circuits as the circuit board manufacturing and supply arm, Millenia Technology, across the Allegheny River in Cheswick, as the circuit board assembly arm, and Millenia Design as the circuit board design arm.

As a whole, the Millenia Group companies had revenue of $25 million in the last year, representing 20 percent growth. It employs about 220 people.

This corporate structure allows Triangle Circuits the ability to pursue business supplying circuit boards to assembly companies other than its sister company.

Because it wasn’t heavily exposed to the hard-hit telecommunications sector — its customers relegated more to medical devices and industrial process controls — Triangle was able to weather the nation’s 2000-2003 economic slump better than some others, said founder and Chief Executive Michael D’Ambrosio Sr.

But D’Ambrosio said the shock to the economy spurred Triangle to re-examine every part of its business, from its buying materials to its partnerships.

“We looked at costs from all angles,” he said. “This (downturn) was more severe than everything else that has happened over the years. When you’re down and scrambling, you learn to get more creative.”

Matters were made worse by the fact that during the technology boom of the late 1990s, customers were double ordering boards to avoid being caught with low supplies. So when the boom went bust in late 2000, circuit board makers were hurting because their customers were left with huge inventories.

“We lost 20-30 percent of sales,” Nahrwold said of 2001, the worst year in Triangle’s history.

That’s when it began exploring becoming an offshore supplier in addition to an onshore manufacturer.

D’Ambrosio is confident that Triangle’s new model of providing soup-to-nuts service from board design to procurement to assembly either through its own manufacturing capability, or through importing, will allow it to compete effectively in a larger geographic footprint.

To maintain a healthy flow of new customers, D’Ambrosio said the company is expanding its market to a wider, roughly 250-mile radius, to include central Ohio.

Triangle’s customers today want quicker deliveries, smaller quantities and increased engineering capability, he said.

It recently won a contract to provide the centralized circuit board procurement for all of the subsidiaries of Waltham, Mass.-based Thermo-Electron Corp., after starting with just one Thermo-Electron subsidiary in Marietta, Ohio.

Triangle is one of two suppliers used by O’Hara-based Mine Safety Appliances Co. for the circuit boards that go into MSA products.

Tom Merriman, materials manager for the instrument division at O’Hara-based Mine Safety Appliances Co., said it hasn’t used Triangle to import boards for its gas detection devices or thermal imaging cameras used by firefighters as of yet, but said he wouldn’t be surprised if he did at some point.

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