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Agilent leaving circuit board business- Liberty Lake, WA division sold and being moved to Asia

Local assembly operation’s equipment being sold to Venture Manufacturing

Tom Sowa
Staff writer

Agilent Technologies has sold the manufacturing equipment from its Liberty Lake printed circuit assembly division.

The production equipment has been purchased by Venture Manufacturing, a Singapore company that tried last year to take over the printed circuit assembly operation in Liberty Lake. Venture Manufacturing, one of the world’s largest contract manufacturers, is shipping the equipment to one of its facilities in Malaysia, said Agilent spokeswoman Liz Cox.

Terms of the sale will not be disclosed, she said.

As the equipment is being crated off and sent overseas, workers will receive four to six weeks’ notice before their jobs end.

The circuit board division will shut down by the end of October, said Cox.

Venture is buying Agilent’s equipment used to automate the assembly of circuit boards and their quality testing.

The equipment, much of which Cox said is ‘‘fairly large," is going to Venture’s facility at Johore Bahru in Malaysia.

Last year, Agilent and Venture discussed the sale of the printed circuit division. Venture considered moving into the Liberty Lake plant and keeping many of the jobs that Agilent said would otherwise be eliminated. But a sale was never completed, opening the door for Venture to make a bid on the equipment.

Dismantling and closing the circuit board division will not impact Agilent’s research and development unit in Liberty Lake. The R&D division has more than 300 workers focused on developing test equipment for cell phone manufacturers.

At one time, Liberty Lake’s printed circuit board production unit employed more than 500. Today, it has less than 150.

Agilent began laying off workers in that unit in late 2001 after company officials announced it would stop producing circuit boards and rely on outsource producers.

Printed circuit boards are the electronic and silicon guts that companies like Agilent, Cisco and others rely on in their main products.

Venture is expected to continue as a major provider of circuit boards for Agilent. Like many companies, Agilent is locating production sites in Asia to deliver products to customers quickly. The company recently dedicated a production facility in Panang, Malaysia.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=031503&ID=s1318926&cat=section.business

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