Ryan Estrada, the General Manager and Co-Owner of Ronin, knows how important various aspects of product development are to success. Designing and manufacturing a product quickly without breaking the bank is crucial to the growth and development of a business.
Many companies pride themselves on the long hours they work perfecting their designs and fabricating the end product. However, Estrada learned that it can pay – literally – to partner with a contract manufacturer that specializes in box builds and assembling completed products. By partnering with Circuit Assembly for contract manufacturing, Estrada was able to form a mutually beneficial relationship between the two firms.
The Company
Ronin’s flagship product is the Ronin Lift – a lightweight, durable battery-powered rope ascender – as well as various accessories that come with it.
As a team, Ronin has more than 20 years of design and manufacturing experience; however, the company itself has only been in business for about 3 years.
To date, Ronin has been very successful and has expanded into more than 40 countries with distributors and resellers worldwide. The Ronin Lift and its accessories are used in a variety of different markets, so it’s important for the company to continue to scale up its operations accordingly while ensuring a high quality end product.
Learn more about Circuit Assembly’s Contract Manufacturing services
Ronin’s Challenges
One of the biggest challenges for Ronin, especially being a growing company, was keeping overhead costs low while still producing a quality end product and keeping up with the level of demand Ronin was seeing for its product.
“It was important for us to scale the business quickly without sacrificing the quality of our product. We want to keep the quality of what we produce in line with our standards and not put out a bad product for the sake of quick growth.”
-Ryan Estrada, Co-Owner and General Manager, Ronin
Some of the solutions Estrada considered included hiring a new employee to assemble products in-house or work with a temp agency to bring in another team member. However, the downside was that it can take time to find good people and train them correctly. Hiring a new employee can also be costly and one of Ronin’s goals was to keep overhead costs to a minimum.
The Ronin team realized their best solution would be to partner with a contract manufacturing company that already had the capabilities in place to provide a full box build service that would support the design and manufacture of the Ronin Lift and the company’s other accessories.
By partnering with a contract manufacturer, Estrada and his other team members would be able to focus their time and resources on in-house design and marketing for existing products as well as work on prototyping new ideas.
In addition, the Ronin team would not have to take on the costs and training that would come with hiring a new employee. Instead, they would be able to reap the benefits of partnering with a company that had pre-established assembly lines, QA processes, and manufacturing expertise.
Circuit Assembly’s Solution
Once Estrada knew the best solution to his challenges would be to partner with a contract manufacturer for a box build of their product, he took to the Internet to search for the best fit for his company. He found Circuit Assembly through a Yelp search while looking to supply a small, obscure circuitry switch for their unit.
After reaching out to the team at Circuit Assembly, Estrada found them to be quick, courteous, and knowledgeable. A sales representative was sent out to the Ronin facility within 24 hours and was able to reassure the Ronin team of Circuit Assembly’s history, its areas of expertise, and how it could best help with Estrada’s challenges.
While the sales representative was there discussing the circuitry switch, he took a look around the facility and asked if there was anything more that Circuit Assembly could do to help. He suggested that Circuit Assembly could actually produce complete units for Ronin instead of just one small part and that was exactly what Estrada and the Ronin team was looking for.
After continued discussions and meetings with members of the Circuit Assembly management team, Ronin agreed to partner with Circuit Assembly due to its competitive pricing, years of experience, and quick product turnaround. Ronin had the product design and Circuit Assembly had the expertise and successful assembly line needed to produce the Ronin Lift quickly, safely, and correctly.
“It’s better to team with a company that already has the processes and quality control in place and is already set up to assemble and run a successful factory line. This keeps my overhead low and I quickly receive finished product that 99.9% of the time is perfect.”
However, the biggest value proposition Circuit Assembly was able to bring to the table was allowing Ronin to grow in a sustainable way. While Ronin could have built certain components in house, the output would not nearly have equaled the demand for the Ronin Lift and its other accessories that Ronin has seen once it had the capability to keep its product in stock.
Get more information on contract manufacturing services at Circuit Assembly
The Results
Before working with Circuit Assembly, Ronin was limited on the number of Ronin Lift units they were able to produce per day. Today, thanks to its partnership with Circuit Assembly, Ronin has been able to scale production beyond what they could have accomplished in house.
This outsourcing has been a key component of the substantial growth that Ronin has seen. Working with Circuit Assembly allows Ronin’s associates to spend their days doing what they’re best at while relying on a partner in Circuit Assembly to do what it’s best at.
“It frees up a lot of time for me to run operations; but, the biggest benefit is us being able to allocate our funds and other resources to engineering, supply chain, marketing, and other areas that really matter to help our company grow. We are able to focus on prototyping and new design while outsourcing the actual manufacturing of the products.”
What’s more is that Circuit Assembly is able to scale up according to Ronin’s product demand, allowing the company to stay ahead of its competitors and stock products rather than build to order. Lead times have also been reduced by more than half and forecasting has been simplified.
Estrada knew fairly quickly after walking through Circuit Assembly’s shop that it was the right box build partner firm for Ronin. For starters, he was impressed by how organized it was and how well all the various components were put together. This first impression has more than translated into success for Ronin, as the company has quickly built a worldwide footprint in just a few short years in business.
“By partnering with Circuit Assembly, we are able to run a smaller shop and be just as capable of larger things for a lot longer than we could if we were building all these products in house.”
For more information on how you can take your business to the next level by partnering with Circuit Assembly, contact us today.