Business Profile: Hytec Dealer Services

Thinking “Circuit Board Repair”? Get Hytec.

By Jamie Hamilton

When dealers think of circuit board repair, most think of Hytec.  After nearly 25 years of business, it is clear why they should.  Hytec offers circuit board repair on the Canon, Ricoh, Konica Minolta, Sharp, Oce, Toshiba, Panasonic and Brother lines, to name a few. It is this wide range of services that has earned Hytec the esteem of being recognized as the “most OEM authorized office equipment board repair company in the world (www.hytecrepair.com HytecHeadlines: Vol. 1, issue 4).”

“When we offer a line, we try and be as complete as we can and offer service on all the boards and all of the models (in that line) for our customers,” said Bob Ekdahl, Senior VP of Hytec Dealer Services.  The thoroughness of this tactic is why Hytec is recognized as the industry leader in circuit board repair.

As they have expanded through the years, they have partnered with OEM’s in order to provide as extensive repair support as possible for their dealers’ customers. As an example of this effort, they are currently featuring repair on the Electronics for Imaging, Fiery controllers, and processor boards.   Ekdahl explained the importance of the new line, “It’s been over two years now since we offered full repair services on these items.  These are highly proprietary products that are used by the majority of the copier and printer manufacturers. EFI has developed most of these color and digital processing circuitry and networking circuitry that is now considered the standard throughout the industry.  We have been working directly with EFI now for several years developing the technical support needed to repair these circuit boards and to develop a good, functional repair system.  We are proud to say that we are an integral part of that repair system with EFI and its OEM distributors.”

Another method of service expansion is Hytec’s original concept known as the Hytec Board Bank.  With this system, Hytec’s dealer clients are ensured of getting the board they need quick and without extra time involved for shipping defective cores in for immediate repair.  “The idea of a board banking system is where we actually warehouse the boards for a customer.  They can call us and have a board sent to them overnight, saving an entire day of processing.  We perform inventory management for more than half of our customers.  More and more our business is becoming Board Bank or another program we refer to as our Advanced Exchange (customers can exchange their board for a replacement board).  The Board Bank clearly saves our clients the warehouse space of storing the board and eliminates the overnight shipping cost for one direction.”                                

Hytec continues efforts to apply its electronics repair experience and is looking to expand beyond its industry.  While they could not say exactly how, they did say that their experience combined with the logistics of their distribution and inventory system allows opportunities to open up for Hytec.  These operations could be used for many industries such as computers, consumer electronics, and medical equipment. 

Board Banking/ Advanced Exchange provides clients with the security of knowing that they can get that board the next morning.  25 years of experience and a full 1-year warranty on all circuit boards say the rest.  The reliability and dependability of Hytec are what have kept customers coming back for over two decades.

“We have built our business on the quality of our board repair first.  And that gave us a big advantage: quality and reliability.  Over the years there were quite a few repair centers.  Now there are really only a small handful of board repair centers left.  At the time [of our inception] Manufacturers such as Canon and Danka used have their own repair centers.  And they’ve all closed up.   That’s our core competency, we can do it cheaper and better because that’s our whole focus,” said Eric Auman, Hytec’s VP of Operations and Service.

Board repair is not the only concern of Hytec, they equally focus on their customers’ needs.  And in customer service, they have a reputation of going the extra mile.  “It might be an old way of thinking, but we actually go out and visit our customers, face to face.  Most of our routine business is done through shipping companies, but in order to create that business we do sit down personally one on one at a customer’s site to determine what their needs are. Many of our unique and industry leading services have resulted from such direct communication with our customers and it is why we continue such efforts today.”   

Hytec’s customers include large conglomerates as well as the aggressive, independent office machine dealerships in North America, including Canada, Mexico, and Latin America.  “Our customers include the OEM’s and large distributors like Ikon and Danka, as well as all independent companies.  We work with the corporate headquarters of companies such as Ikon, Danka and Global Imaging and each one of our service programs is of course different and designed for their individual needs.  Of the three big players Ikon, Danka, and Global Imaging Systems, we are proud to say that we provide the majority of their repair services.” 

Networking capabilities are what make Hytec accessible to both large and small companies in need of board repair.   “As our repair and exchange services have picked up, we now have a dedicated warehouse in Canada where we house boards and fill orders and we are looking to open a warehouse on the West Coast in the near future (Nevada or Utah are  proposed sites) where we can realize fast delivery of the items ordered for that time zone but also offer later in the day ordering for all of our customers.”

It is clear, Hytec knows board repair. They have a state of the art facility including BGA removal and replacement machinery, digital testing, ESD compliance network, and they are working toward an ISO 9000 certification.  Conclusively, the data bank they have created on repairing circuit boards is clearly an asset to the industry, and office machine dealers, and technicians worldwide.

“We know our business because we are our business,” said Ekdahl, “We created this entire business in the early 80's out of nothing.  If you wanted a board repair, you might have gotten it fixed by the OEM.  But there was no other choice.  If you did, it was 3 months later and you had already bought the board again three times over before the repaired one ever got to you.  We created our business and we know it because we were there from the beginning.”

Hytec Before “Hytec”

Hytec originally started as a division of Delta Business Systems (which later became Ikon) one of the largest office machine dealers in the U.S. (it did not bear the Hytec name).  In 1981 Daniel Turay, Corporate VP of Service of Delta Business Systems, realized the need of doing the circuit board repair of the machines out in the field.

 “We did some business for Delta, and started saving Delta money by doing the board repair instead of buying new boards from the OEM’s.  In that 4-year period while we were at Delta, we started soliciting the business of other office machine dealers.  And then eventually we became an individual company, we branched away and became Hytec,” said Auman.

With Dan and Carla purchasing the department from Delta in 1985, they started with 6 employees, of which the 4 officers were from Delta: Dan Turay and his wife Carla, Bob Ekdahl, and Eric Auman.  The other two employees were technicians.  Eric was still going to college for his business degree while at Delta and Bob was an electronic technician in the board repair department.  When starting Hytec, Eric took part in the logistics role while Bob concentrated on the sales and technical side of the business.

Auman went on to describe how they grew, “Once we became independent we really ramped up our sales and marketing and we grew rather rapidly over the years as we added new lines and our name grew in the industry.  When we got out on our own we marketed and obtained the Sharp and Canon business which was our primary background with repairs.”

They grew their business at a controlled pace.  They began to offer service products for technicians such as tools, tool kits, meters, and test equipment.  Over the years they branched off into electro-mechanical assemblies and small machine repair. 

The board repair branched from initially repairing boards for copiers, to fax machines, typewriter board repairs, and then on to laser printer board repairs.  “We tried not to take on more than we could handle properly or fully across our lines.  Over time our customers themselves became authorized with multiple OEM’s so we decided to go into Minolta and Ricoh, then Mita and Oce, and we continued to add manufacturers over time.  Our roots are and always have been Canon.” 

 The business in 1985 was located in a 1600 sq ft. facility.  Since then they have moved or expanded four times.  They are now in a 50,000 sq ft of a 250,000 sq ft building.  Comparatively, their employee numbers have grown to approximately 120, the larger number of those being technicians and support personnel. 

“You can’t replace the knowledge that our employees have whether it be on the technical side or the management side.  The ability for everybody to participate in our business, this is what keeps our company dynamic.  We change the way we do things based on two main factors: what our customers need and what our employees’ input is to making the process better,” said Ekdahl .

Hytec- Future Expansion

Hytec is continuing to expand in every way, from its network system with customers to cross- industry pollenation.  They are constructing a way to tie it all together electronically and in real time for customers and their staff, even if they are on the other side of the globe. 

“To support all these warehousing and logistics across the country, we are in the middle of implementing a very elaborate, comprehensive ERP computer system costing about $2 million so we can keep up with what we’re doing.  That’s been a two year project,” Ekdahl went on to explain its effects, “It’s going to allow easy customer access as well as management information internally.  And allow us to have the tools to manage all the advanced exchange that we do.  We are working on our website too where we have had on-line account access for several years. With our new system, (expected to be operational in early 2004) everything will be on one platform where customers can see expanded information on their account, view their order, inventory, and create orders online.”

Growth internally is promoting more growth externally.  Hytec has their sites on Europe and is interested in creating distribution sites that will make the disbursement of boards and establishment of new Board Bank and Advanced Exchange systems comparable to those they now have in the United States.

“Although we’ve done some business in Europe in the past,” Auman said, “we look forward to refocusing our efforts there in the next couple of years.  Europe and other international expansion are definitely in our future.”