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2ndRick
07-10-2011, 03:38 AM
Once again in Made in North America Month, we find ourselves profiling one of our earliest supporters from the manufacturing community.

Brent McCall and Ethereal Home Theater have been a part of IntegrationPros since the re-launch in January 2005.

When Gary and I decided to move forward with this idea as the special series topic for the Month of July, I went to work creating a short list of questions for the selected manufacturers for the inaugural series.

So here goes:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-WW1Lw5UOr34/ThliCpBCPvI/AAAAAAAAExs/YFyE2UcBYis/s800/ethereal%252520logo.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-aySOFtk7Q5c/ThliZwu9ouI/AAAAAAAAExw/ywiC-h0TeKo/s800/metra%252520logo.jpg


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Rick Murphy, IntegrationPros:
First question: How long has the company been in business?

Brent McCall, Ethereal Home Theater (division of Metra Electronics):

Metra Electronics has been in business for 66 years.

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Rick:
2): Where are the locations of your production facilities?

Brent:
Holly Hill, Florida
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Rick:
3) How many people are employed in total? (feel free to include historical figures from the company's most successful times if you are comfortable)

Brent:
Between 450 and 600, depending on the season.

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Rick:
4) What percentage of the SKUs in your product offering are produced in North America at some level?

Brent:
Parent Company (Metra Electronics)
Automotive Dash Kits (85% USA)
Automotive Wire Harnesses (30% USA)

Ethereal Home Theater (I do not know percentage of overall business)
HDMI products are made in the US (including)

HDM-Cat5A
HDM-Cat5
HDM-Cat6SC
HDM-DAD
HDM-SR1
HDM-WP1
HDM-WP2
HDM-Tester
HDM-TesterE


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Rick:
5) In the spirit of the American Automobile Labeling Act, requiring automakers to report what percent of the parts by value in any given model hail from both the United States and Canada. What is the rough percentage of N. American content of the components and materials of your products?

Brent:
In the Metra Dash Kits.
Plastic Pellets (I do not know)

In the production of the wiring harnesses, the bulk wire is srouced from a US wire mill, which we cut and terminate on site. As for the terminal plugs, approx 35% of them come from the US.

For the Ethereal HDMI Products listed above, certain electronic components, some of the plastic cases, and the Decora plates that are packaged with some of the items, and are off shore, but all else is made in the USA.

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Rick:
6) What would you say is the difference in the value proposition that you offer to the dealers and end users compared to your peers who utilize off-shore production? (materials quality, labor force, logistics, JIT capabilities, etc.)

Brent:
Build quality is higher. As we are just up the road form NASA we have some very good (in fact the best in the world) board level fab facilities available to us.

Production here also allows a 100% product QC (take that China).

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Rick: (optional question for vendors who cross into commercial systems)
7): I believe this is primarily impacting the commercial space, but what (if any) effect to your dealers and specifiers see from the Recovery and Reinvestment Act or any other incentives to include US made products into taxpayer-funded Municipal, Education, and Government projects?

Brent:
None to the best of my knowledge.