The Hampshire Company, a Brown Deer-based designer and manufacturer of touch screens controls used for industrial devices, cash registers, medical machinery and even Las Vegas-style slot machines, has been acquired by Microchip Technology Inc., an Arizona microcontroller and semiconductor maker.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Carl Bauman and Jerry Hanauer, founders of The Hampshire Co. have stayed on with the acquisition. Bauman has a six month employment agreement and Hanauer has a two year agreement and will serve as senior research and development staff engineer. Carol Crawford, the company's director, has also been retained for two years.

The acquisition was largely due to the explosion in demand for touch screen related products since Apple's iPhone was released.

"Since it hit the market, touch screens have gone through the roof," Bauman said. "It created a huge demand from handheld (devices) to kiosks and games. Microchip realized that owning our technology would allow them to capture a new market."

Being acquired by Microchip, which is traded on the NASDAQ board under the symbol MCHP, will allow The Hampshire Company to take part in the global demand for its touch screens, Bauman said.

"The market grew so quickly and globally that we didn't have the people here to react," he said. "Microchip is a huge company. Their competitors are getting into the market, and this gave them a leg up to get into the market overnight."

The Hampshire Company has 18 employees, and all of them have been retained, Bauman said. Microchip has indicated that it will add new engineers and technical staff in Milwaukee, but Bauman did not know how many or when they might be hired.

The company uses a network of suppliers in and around Milwaukee to manufacture its products. Bauman believes those supplier relationships will remain in place after the acquisition.

"We may add global suppliers, but for our existing customers and products I think it will stay the same," he said.

With its acquisition of The Hampshire Co., Microchip will likely expand the markets that the company's products are sold into.

"Microchip's acquisition puts it in the league where it can supply portable electronic products like GPS (locating units), MP3 players, and laptop, tablet and desktop computers," Bauman said.

Wisconsin International Services Logistics Inc., a New Berlin-based transportation logistics firm, is growing by offering low-cost, flexible solutions to manufacturers around the U.S.

WIS Logistics arranges trucking services between manufacturers and trucking firms in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. It does not employ its own drivers, but locates and hires trucking firms for each shipment.

WIS Logistics has nine employees, but has arranged 11,000 shipments between October 2007 and October 2008. It handled about 10,000 shipments a year earlier.

Because of its connections and industry knowledge, WIS Logistics is able to connect its customers with the appropriate shipping arrangement, ranging from a small load like one to four pallets, a partial load of four to 20 pallets or a full trailer load.

"Our job is to look at all of the carriers – we want to find the best way to handle carriers and make the best decision to move freight," said Jon Teraoka, CEO. "We use different types of capacity and see what the market bears out today."

The company expects to finish 2008 with a 20 percent revenue increase, at close to $9 million, Teraoka said. It had $7.2 million in revenues in 2007, Teraoka said.

WIS Logistics has helped its customers save money by not always recommending the lowest cost carrier, Teraoka said.

"Everybody is running now and trying to cut costs and in the end, transportation can be a fairly large expense," he said. "The first thought is to get the lowest price, but that is not necessarily the best way to lower costs in the long term."

Rexnord lays off 60 workers
Rexnord Industries LLC, the Milwaukee-based parent corporation of Falk Corp, laid off about 60 employees last week.

About 40 of the employees who were laid off worked at Falk Corp.'s plant in Milwaukee's Menomonee Valley, said Karen Schwenke, Rexnord's vice president of corporate marketing for Rexnord.

"We find ourselves in the same economic slowdown as all businesses do now," Schwenke said. "This was based on end-market demand (for our products)."

The remaining layoffs within the Rexnord organization were made outside of metropolitan Milwaukee, Schwenke said.

The company is not planning additional layoffs at this point, she said.

Outplacement services, severance pay and benefits continuation were offered to the affected workers. Some of them may be called back eventually, Schwenke said.

"We will look to staff back up when we need to, but I can't speculate on when they might be called back," she said.

Brady Corp. to cut 10 percent of its workforce
Brady Corp. announced last week that it will undergo a "proactive" restructuring as the economy continues to slide, and the company will cut 10 percent of its worldwide workforce of 8,000 people.

The Milwaukee-based manufacturer of labels and signs also announced it will implement a company-wide salary freeze and will reduce discretionary spending.

"Our proactive measures to control costs helped to mitigate the effects of a deteriorating economy, and combined with other factors including a lower effective tax rate, resulted in slight net income growth in the first quarter," said Frank Jaehnert, Brady's president and chief executive officer. "This was despite a decline in organic sales caused by a marked slowdown in our markets in the later part of the quarter. We expect a continuation of the challenging global economy and are taking additional steps to reduce our costs. These steps include a global workforce reduction of approximately 10 percent to be implemented in the second quarter, a company-wide salary freeze, the continued reduction of discretionary spending and contingency plans for further reductions in the event of more severe business contraction,"

Brady spokeswoman Carole Herbstreit told BizTimes Milwaukee that the company has not yet decided how many jobs will be cut from its Milwaukee operations.

Brady reported fiscal first quarter net income of $37.1 million, or 69 cents per share, which was up from $36.4 million, or 66 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.

However, "The last half of October was very soft," Jaehnert said in a conference call with analysts.

Viasystems to close Oak Creek plant
St. Louis, Mo.-based Viasystems Group Inc. plans to close its Oak Creek plant, putting 238 people out of work.

The company has notified the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development about the plans to close the manufacturing and distribution facility at 10001 S. Howell Ave.

The layoffs will be done in phases from Jan. 19 to May 31.

Viasystems manufactures electronic systems and subsystems, such as printed circuit boards and back-panel assemblies.

Oshkosh to build new plant in China
Oshkosh Corp. broke ground last week on a new manufacturing plant in Tianjin, China.

The new facility will produce JLG access equipment specifically for the Asian market. The announcement is another step in Oshkosh Corp.'s strategic business initiatives to meet the demands of a global economy and the growth potential of the Asian markets.

Oshkosh currently manufactures in 11 countries and has additional service operations in 16 countries.

"The facility we are building in Tianjin is a strategic initiative to directly service regional customers with a faster delivery turnaround for our JLG brand of aerial work platforms," said Robert Bohn, chairman and chief executive officer of Oshkosh Corp.

"This locally-produced product will give Oshkosh a distinct strategic advantage in a very aggressive, competitive Asian landscape. JLG products made at the Tianjin facility will be targeted for the China and Asian markets and be a complement to other JLG manufacturing facilities which build product for the rest of the world."

The vacuum systems designed and built by Milwaukee-based Vector Technologies Ltd. work just like typical domestic vacuum cleaners, but they can handle materials and volumes that normal systems can’t.

When the company was founded in 1975, Vector’s custom vacuums were originally designed to remove gravel from asphalt-topped commercial roofs. Today, its systems remove a wide range of materials, whether they’re spilled on a shop floor, used in the oil exploration field, knocked onto the surface of a highway or spilled into a sewer.

To read more, click here.

In talking to Chinese policy makers, it is clear that they question why we in the West are bailing out the institutions and mangers that failed us, in the name of liquidity, writes BizTimes correspondent Einar Tangen. They wonder how this is going to help people pay their mortgages, car loans, credit cards and make purchases, especially after they have lost their jobs.

They understand that investment and working capital are necessary, but they see jobs and domestic markets as the keys to a healthy economy. To them, covering the bad bets of our financial institutions as businesses contract and jobs are lost seems like we are throwing good money after bad, something they have had a lot of experience with themselves.

To read more, click here.

Dickten Masch Plastics names new CEO
Nashotah-based Dickten Masch Plastics LLC recently appointed Steven Dyer as the company's new president and chief executive officer.

Dickten Masch provides advanced technical solutions in thermoplastic and thermoset molding, engineering, analytical lab and tooling services.

Dyer has more than 17 years of experience in plastic injection molding, operations management and world-class manufacturing processes to the position. He is a certified "Green Belt" with extensive experience in lean pull systems and brings a focus on waste elimination from all facets of the business. Dyer is also a certified quality engineer and brings a holistic approach to quality as a cornerstone of the overall customer experience, the company said.

Dickten Masch's client base includes companies such as Cooper Power Systems, Cummins, GE Water & Process Technologies, Kohler Company, Milwaukee Electric Tool, Rockwell Automation Inc. and Square D.

MMAC adds another conference about sick leave mandate

The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce has added a second conference to rally business opposition to and share information about a mandated sick leave ordinance in the City of Milwaukee.

The MMAC's first conference about the mandate, to be held tomorrow, filled up quickly, so the organization has added a second conference to be held Tuesday, Dec. 2, from 4 to 5:15 p.m., at the MMAC's offices, 756 N. Milwaukee St.

The conference only has space for about 100 people, so early registration is recommended, according to Julie Granger, vice president of communications for the MMAC.

"We will continue to offer these sessions as long as we have interested parties," Granger said.

The MMAC is rallying opposition to a mandated sick leave ordinance that was approved by voters in a Nov. 4 referendum. The MMAC board of directors last week agreed to file a lawsuit to stop the ordinance from taking effect.

For additional information about the conferences, contact the MMAC.