INDUSTRY INTERVIEW: Lind Electronics
Q: What is the background of Lind Electronics?
A: Lind Electronics is a veteran-owned small business that supplies power adapters and power cables for military and commercial applications. The company was founded in 1975. Our power supply engineering team has over 60 years of cumulative design experience, which enables them to incorporate time-tested design principles along with the newest available technology to create advanced power conversion systems for the most critical applications. Lind Electronics has longstanding development and supplier partnerships with some of the largest military suppliers in the world, such as Harris, General Dynamics, Aerovironment, Dell, Panasonic and many others.
Q: What are your primary products?
A: Lind Electronics manufactures ruggedized AC/DC and DC/C power adapters, shutdown timers and custom power cables. Most of the adapters accept a wide range of input voltages and provide a variety of input and output protective circuits to prevent undesirable interaction with other system elements. Most adapters are used to power notebook computers and PDAs, but we also produce power adapters in support of video systems, printers and radio equipment. Ruggedized package and circuit designs are common to all of our COTS adapters with additional ruggedization applied to the adapters certified to applicable portions of MIL-STD461E, MIL-STD1275D and MILSTD810F. Every branch of the U.S. military and many of the NATO countries use power adapters and cables from Lind.
Q: What makes Lind Electronics stand out as a supplier or partner?
A: Quick delivery is our most outstanding supplier characteristic. We maintain large stocks of finished and partially assembled adapters that can ship single to 100-unit orders on a next-day or second-day basis. Delivery of production quantities in the thousands are frequently accomplished in days, not weeks or months.
We emphasize quick turnaround on development projects as well as on our established product lines. It is not unusual to get a request for a custom product on Monday and ship out a prototype on Thursday. This commitment to quick delivery requires that we carry a lot of inventory, but our ability to quickly deliver products is one of the biggest differentiators between Lind and others serving this market.
Q: Are you a fairly new player in the military?
A: I started my engineering career at Honeywell in 1962 designing bomb and mine fuses. There is no tougher test than dropping your product out of an airplane. Epoxy potting of circuits was common in those products, and I found that similar packaging was appropriate for power supplies used in rough industrial and military environments. Our support for Panasonic and General Dynamics ruggedized computers led us to the military markets where these laptops have become increasingly prominent.
Manufacturing cables for laptops led us into molded power cables for military batteries and vehicles within the last three to five years. We have two sales people focused exclusively on the special needs and requirements of our defense customers. Military business currently accounts for about 20 percent of our company revenue.
Q: What are some examples of some of your biggest successes in the defense industry?
A: One of our biggest military successes is the support we are providing for the lightweight handheld mortar ballistic computer [LHMBC]. We were able to develop, test and deploy over 1,300 units within seven weeks. Competitors on this program required over 10 weeks to produce their first working prototype. The Lind solution is also 30 percent lower cost than the competitive solution.
Q: How are you positioned for the future within the military?
A: We will continue to serve the special power needs of our military customers and try to meet their future needs as appropriate technologies develop. Our most interesting new product is a robust solar power system with a flexible solar panel and a rechargeable 2590 military battery. This system will allow continuous use of a tablet computer in the field with fewer batteries and less weight, a welcome prospect for all involved.
The Army Evaluation Task Force at Fort Bliss evaluated the solar power system and their conclusion was, “The Lind Solar Charge System is a durable, well-built solution to any unit in need of a backup source for power . . . The applications in which this product can be utilized are unlimited, and the size of unit requiring such recourse should not be hindered by the price.” We anticipate that this system is going to open up many new opportunities for pushing data even farther out in the field, and Lind will be on the forefront of introducing this technology to military users. ♦
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