One of Tucson's newest manufacturers, Integrated Magnetics, started out in 1955 making standard magnets, like the ones stuck to your refrigerator door.
Today, you can find the company's custom magnets, motors and precision assemblies in products ranging from automobiles to guided missiles.
"We make things that have magnetics at the heart of them," said Anil Nanji, president of Integrated Magnetics' parent, Integrated Technologies Group.
Now, some of those products are being made right here in Tucson, at a plant the company opened on the south side.
Integrated Magnetics announced in September that it had purchased the 25,000-square-foot industrial building at 3590 E. Columbia St. from Applied Energetics (which moved nearby) for about $1.5 million. The company said the site could employ up to 200 people over the next five years.
People are also reading…
The Culver City, Calif.-based company hit the ground running and has made itself right at home in Tucson.
Nanji said the company got the keys to the new plant Oct. 1 and by month's end was turning out sample products. The company initially employs about 16 people, including assemblers and other technical staff.
At the plant one day last week, a team of assemblers was working on long, cylindrical motors for robotic equipment arms.
But there's more to come, including a large, Class 1000 clean room (with 1,000 denoting the number of half-micrometer or larger particles allowed per cubic foot of air) for assembly and testing of sensitive products. The company already has one small clean room, Nanji noted.
"We will be hiring more people between now and mid-February," Nanji said.
Nanji declined to say what exactly what the factory workers are paid but said it is in the industry range of about $12 to $15 per hour, plus full benefits.
The company has had no trouble finding experienced assemblers, said Gus Rivera, who heads the local site as operations controller.
"They're very smart and they have the experience," said Rivera, noting that some hires had recently been let go by electronics firms that shut local operations.
Employees at the Tucson site are working on an ongoing production line, using parts made at other company locations, including a maquiladora plant Integrated Magnetics opened in Nogales, Sonora, in 2008, said Rivera, a 14-year company veteran.
Boxes of finished precision motor spindles - including tiny magnetic parts - were precision- machined in Nogales to tight tolerances, he noted.
Magnets are machined from raw stock, including rare-earth materials like neodymium iron boron, then shipped to Tucson along with other components for assembly.
"We are a very vertically integrated company, so we start with metal and end up with a finished product," Nanji said.
The success of the Mexican plant, which employs about 180 people, was a major factor in choosing Tucson for the new plant, Nanji said. The company also has a plant in China.
Tucson's strategic location between Los Angeles and the Nogales plant, the optics and engineering strengths of the University of Arizona and a pro-business climate also were cited as pluses.
"The more we looked at Tucson, the more we liked it, and we fell in love with it - it's a great city," Nanji said.
The company was founded in California in 1955 as Magnetic Sales, which sold a variety of standard ferrite magnets and became a leader in flexible magnet material.
In 1981, Nanji and his father, a longtime entrepreneur, bought 50 percent of the company with the aim of expanding into more technical magnetics. Nanji, a native of Kenya who moved with his family when he was 12 to London, studied physics and business at University College London and Malvern College.
The company began making custom magnets, adding advanced engineering and machining capabilities. In 1993, the company delivered a complete magnetic bearing assembly for NASA's Space Shuttle. In 2001, Integrated Magnetics built an actuator motor rotor designed to move in nanometer increments for the Hubble space telescope.
Some of Integrated Magnetics' customers include precision-control supplier Moog Inc.; aerospace and defense giants Honeywell, General Atomics and Alliant Techsystems; semiconductor equipment maker ASML; oil-field services provider Baker Hughes; and medical companies including Bayer and Jarvik Heart.
And the company still sells standard, non-technical magnets - including refrigerator magnets - through Magnetic Sales, now a division of the larger company.
How to apply
Check job openings at Integrated Magnetics at www.intemag.com/career_opportunities
Contact Assistant Business Editor David Wichner at dwichner@azstarnet.com or 573-4181.
