By Kate Hill
Staff Writer
Knowles Precision Devices (KPD) of Cazenovia was recently awarded a multimillion-dollar contract by BAE Systems to produce parts to support the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program — the most ambitious aircraft development and acquisition effort in the DOD’s history, according to a statement announcing the contract.
A division of Knowles Corporation, KPD develops and manufactures high-performance specialty components, capacitors and microwave products.
KPD products are used in radar, pacemakers, MRI equipment, satellites, airplanes, electric vehicles, missile defense and guidance systems, soldier gear, mobile phone base stations and more.
As a subcontractor to BAE Systems — a British multinational defense, security and aerospace company — KPD has been tasked with developing and manufacturing filters that help support the F-35’s electronic warfare technology.
The company plans to produce about 250,000-300,000 filters at its Cazenovia plant through April 2021.
“Receiving this contract from BAE Systems shows that our filters are valued and trusted in the industry to support and improve the overall performance of the JSF Program,” said KPD Product Line Manager Tim Brauner in a press release. “Our involvement in this project proves that manufacturing in Central New York is still possible with innovation and engineering prowess, and enables us to continue to grow as a company.”
According to Brauner, the BAE deal is KPD’s first large contract for this type of product.
For decades, the company has primarily focused on the production of capacitors — devices that store electrical energy in an electric field — using dielectric materials (electrical insulators) manufactured at the Cazenovia plant.
“About 15 to 20 years ago, we decided to change gears a little bit and see what else we could do with the dialectics, and we started making filters and other components for temperature-stable, high reliability applications,” Brauner said. “BAE and other military customers came to us with the need to shrink down the size of their filters . . . Our technology takes components that might have been the size of your thumb and makes them the size of your thumbnail using the high permittivity materials that we manufacture and developed here at the facility over the last 40 years.”
Once BAE receives the parts, the company will place the filters in modules — along with many other electronic components — to be installed in the F-35s.
The filters serve to “clean up” the signals picked up by the aircraft by removing unwanted aspects of those signals.
“Our filters are a large piece of the enabling technology that helps them get the performance out of the electronic warfare system that they are building,” Brauner said.
The U.S. government and its allies will purchase the next-generation stealth fighter jets from Lockheed Martin Corporation, the lead contractor of the F-35 JSF program.
Brauner anticipates that the program will continue for at least another 10 to 15 years, and that KPD will be awarded a number of additional contracts.
Just last week, the company picked up a $2 million contract from Raytheon, a major U.S. defense contractor.
The Cazenovia factory currently runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
To meet the demands of its current contracts and to prepare for future contracts, KPD is expanding its operations in Cazenovia and adding to its team.
According to Brauner, over $10 million have been put into the factory expansion so far.
“The broader Knowles organization continues to invest in this piece of business . . . where the growth potential is quite large,” Brauner said. “We were a tiny piece of the business that everyone ignored about eight or nine years ago, and now it seems like they are interested in doing whatever they can to help us continue to grow.”
KPD moved two product lines out of the building to other parts of the country in order to make room for the expansion.
“The footprint of the building hasn’t changed, but the technology that we are building inside has changed and it has continued to become more sophisticated, requiring higher-end equipment and requiring us to continue to hire additional employees,” Brauner said. “I started here about 15 years ago and there were less than 180 employees, we are now up to about 350 and we still have open jobs in this facility . . . Most of the time we hear about jobs that are leaving the area. Yes, we did move some manufacturing lines out of the area to other parts of the country, but we did that so that we could continue to expand. We didn’t lay anyone off, all we did was continue to add people to the building.”
KPD has hired 50 new employees already; an additional 30 positions are open for this calendar year.
According to Brauner, KPD will require even more hires for next year.
Jobs are currently available in multiple areas, including manufacturing, engineering, sales and supply chain.
“We are constantly looking for additional new talent to put ourselves in a position to keep growing,” Brauner said.
To learn about job opportunities at Knowles Precision Devices visit knowlescapacitors.com/Careers.
Interested candidates can submit resumes to [email protected].
