Advanced Input Devices readies Shanghai plant

COEUR d’ALENE – Advanced Input Devices will open a plant in Shanghai next month, building low-cost ultrasound equipment for distribution in Asia.

The plant in the bustling port city of 20 million people is part of the Coeur d’Alene manufacturer’s new profile.

Founded in Coeur d’Alene in 1979, Advanced Input Devices makes computerized control panels for medical equipment in an 85,000-square-foot factory on Wilbur Avenue. Since the company was acquired five years ago by Bellevue-based Esterline Technologies Corp., however, its international reach has expanded.

“I oversee five operations based in three continents,” said Brad Lawrence, Advance Input’s president, who works in Coeur d’Alene.

In addition to the new plant in Shanghai, Lawrence’s responsibilities include: an English factory that makes the track-balls for moving cursors on medical equipment screens; a Michigan plant that makes components for control panels; and the Coeur d’Alene operation.

Lawrence’s responsibilities will grow again next month, when Esterline completes the $145 million purchase of Leach Holding Co. Among Leach’s companies is a German manufacturer of diagnostic medical devices.

“Esterline is growing, and they’re actively investing in this company,” Lawrence said. Even the international growth, he said, has benefits for Coeur d’Alene.

Components produced in England and Michigan are used in the manufacture of control panels in Coeur d’Alene. And the operations in Germany and China will eventually channel more work to the Coeur d’Alene factory, Lawrence said.

In China, Advanced Input will produce low-cost, portable ultrasound equipment for sale in Asian countries. “If we wanted to retain our customers in Asia, we really had to produce it over there,” he said.

That’s because Advanced Input couldn’t afford to make the equipment in the United States at competitive prices, according to Lawrence. Its Coeur d’Alene facility is geared toward high-end, higher quality products. But all of the engineering work for the Chinese office will flow to Coeur d’Alene, which will help support the work force here, he said.

In contrast, the German acquisition will generate factory orders for the Coeur d’Alene operation, Lawrence said. The German firm will continue to produce its diagnostic equipment in Germany, but its engineering office in Munich will design medical control panel products for new European customers.

“Most of our new opportunities are coming from Europe, but it’s hard to get new orders out without an engineering staff there,” Lawrence said. “They don’t want to work in North Idaho’s time zone. They don’t want to work in dollars, and they don’t want to work in English.”

The control panels will be built in Idaho because production costs are lower here than they are in Germany, he said.

Advanced Input laid off 20 of its Coeur d’Alene workers in March, representing about 5 percent of the workforce. The layoffs were the result of a 25 percent drop in orders, according to Lawrence. The slowdown in the medical industry was unexpected, and orders have since rebounded, he said.