Jacqueline Hochheiser, Corporate Communications
The Beginning of a New Era
In order to appreciate where Urjita is now and their aspirations for the future, it’s important to understand how the facility began its long history and how it was nurtured from the ground up to become a successful powerhouse in Chennai, India. It all began when Gunasekar Mandalap and his brother lost their trucking business in India due to the Gulf War, during which time the country was unable to tap into their largest oil suppliers in the Gulf region. As a result of the war, the Indian government closed its foreign exchange ports and left many businesses to flounder.
The unfortunate turn of events led Mandalap to immigrate to the United States in search of new opportunities. After many months of applying to jobs all over the country, he received a response from Mini-Circuits in Brooklyn, New York for an Expediter position. With a background in mechanical engineering and a passion for manufacturing, Mandalap was pleased to find work at an engineering-oriented company where he would be dealing directly with the manufacturing team.
The interview was held at the Neptune Avenue location in Brooklyn by Mini-Circuits’ founder, Harvey Kaylie’s daughter Roberta, who was then the head of the HR department. At that point in Mini-Circuits’ history, the little shop was working hard to keep up with its rapid expansion despite being understaffed. After his interview, Mandalap requested a tour of the facility to get an idea of what he was signing up for.
“My first impression was that it looked a little chaotic, but I also noticed that there was a lot to do and that I could contribute and learn,” said Mandalap. He ultimately accepted the offer, and just as he expected, the job was intense and fast paced but he quickly rose to the challenge.
Over Mandalap’s first year with Mini-Circuits, he proved his value and passion for his work many times over and became close with Founder and CEO Harvey Kaylie. In 1992, about a year after Mandalap started working for Mini-Circuits, he began proposing to Kaylie about opening a facility in India, but it wasn’t until 1997 that Kaylie began to warm up to the idea.
Through his time working at the New York facility as the manufacturing control manager, Mandalap had learned a great deal about the manufacturing process and the art of leading a team. There were always problems and challenges that arose such as faulty parts, or adjusting the assembly lines to be more efficient to get products out to customers on-time, all while maintaining quality. But he enjoyed the problem solving and thrived under pressure.
“Harvey told me from the beginning that ‘quality is something we cannot compromise. He would say, ‘If you give me a quality problem, it’s like you are giving me cancer in my hand, and what do I do if my hand has cancer,’ and he would wait for me to reply. It was very clear to me that quality was of utmost importance,” said Mandalap.
It was his adherence to the idea of quality in every aspect of business and his ability to be a quick problem solver that eventually convinced Kaylie to open a new facility in India with Mandalap at the helm. In 1998, Kaylie and Mandalap began to plan for the expansion and looking at possible locations and suppliers.
Establishing Roots in Chennai
Many of the major decisions about the new facility were left up to Mandalap to finalize. Kaylie never took expansion lightly, and would only agree to it when he had complete confidence in the person entrusted to run it. As with Florida, Ravon and future expansions in other expansions in Malaysia and Missouri, the decision was driven by the relationship before other considerations. Mandalap chose Chennai in the Southeastern state of Tamil Nadu as the location due to its status as an Export Processing Zone (EPZ), of which there are only 5 in India. Being situated in an EPZ would allow easy access to shipping ports that would enable the facility to easily receive raw materials from suppliers, as well as ship the finished products to customers.
Chennai was also considered a Special Economic Zone, which served as an economic headquarters for India and was governed by its own unique business laws. Mandalap was drawn to Chennai for its culture as well, and felt that it echoed Mini-Circuits’ values of discipline, work ethic and quality in business.
Mandalap moved back to India in August, 1999 to get the new business of the ground and begin recruiting team members. The facility officially opened October 21, 1999 under the name Urjita, meaning “full of energy,” as the second international Mini-Circuits location after Mini-Circuits Israel (MCIL).
As the general manager of Urjita, Mandalap readily met the higher-level challenges of running his own facility, but he never lost sight of the day-to-day processes that were required to keep business going, especially in the early days. Throughout the work day, there were always problems and challenges that popped up and Mandalap enjoyed working with his members to come up with solutions.
He also liked to encourage his members to think critically and would often challenge them with difficult designs to see what they came up with. Not only did this help build a bond between Mandalap and his team, but it also encouraged constant improvement to product designs and processes in every aspect of the business. Improvement only comes when there are problems in need of a solution, Mandalap says. It forces change. “It keeps me on my toes. Every day is different and interesting,” he says.
From the beginning, Mandalap invested heavily in people; giving them the training they needed to excel in their jobs, and he made an effort to get to know everyone personally. This method would pay off in the long run, creating an efficient, tight-knit community at Urjita.
Becoming an Overseas Power-House
When Urjita was initially setting up, Mandalap wanted the company to function primarily as a design and manufacturing hub, and designing an efficient production workflow was key. He had learned a great deal about production and assembly from his work at Mini-Circuits’ Brooklyn headquarters and applied that knowledge to creating his own assembly lines. At this stage, the assembly process was very much in an experimental period, but Mandalap always encouraged members to work together to find solutions to difficult problems, which had always been part of the Mini-Circuits mindset.
To help Urjita engineers become more proficient in other technologies and products, Kaylie asked Rafi Stolz at Mini-Circuits Israel to train Urjita’s engineers. Mandalap’s engineering team soon traveled to Mini-Circuits Israel to go through a “boot camp” where the Israeli engineers assessed what the team already knew and how to improve upon their skillsets. In the boot camp, Urjita members learned more about the design process and expanded their knowledge on different technologies and capabilities. The Urjita members kept an open mind through the whole experience and absorbed all the knowledge that was shared with them. Mandalap was especially proud of their willingness to learn and absorb all they could for the betterment of the company and their careers.
Eventually, the Urjita engineering team not only became self-sufficient, but could also propose better designs and take matters into their own hands to create products from scratch. One example was the evolution of an attenuator that was being produced at Urjita and Mini-Circuits Israel.
Once Urjita had proven themselves as adept problem solvers and designers, Mandalap decided that the facility would move into design filters. This was an opportune market because Mini-Circuits’ filter portfolio at the time consisted of only ten different models. In addition, not many competitors were designing filters for semiconductor applications simply because these designs needed to adhere to strict parameters and were difficult to design.
Mandalap pitched his idea to Kaylie the next time he came to visit despite only having three design engineers at the time. Designing filters for semiconductors required knowledge of unique technology and Kaylie was well aware of the strict parameters surrounding a project like this. To counter Kaylie’s skepticism, Mandalap proposed that if Kaylie gave his team a spec to meet, they would have the filter ready for him before he arrived at Urjita that day. It was a bold proposal and one that impressed Kaylie enough for him to agree to the challenge.
When Mandalap went to meet Kaylie the next morning to show him various suppliers in the area, his team set to work designing the new filter. By the time Mandalap and Kaylie made it back to the facility around two in the afternoon, the engineering team had the filter ready. Kaylie was impressed, even more so when the filter was tested and performed as expected.
What was most impressive about this feat was the speed at which the Urjita team was able to pull off designing a filter prototype that met specifications and performed accurately. One of Mini-Circuits’ core values are always keeping an air of urgency to honor commitments to customers. Urjita’s speed and accuracy met this principle and proved to Kaylie that they were a capable team.
Emboldened by the Urjita team’s demonstrated ability, Kaylie authorized Mandalap and his team to delve into the semiconductor market as well as build out the filter product line in other areas. He gave them ten additional specifications to meet. These new filter requirements took the team a year to develop the prototype, refine the design, and achieve mastery in manufacturing and quality to a competitive commercial level.
Today, Mini-Circuits actively sells hundreds of unique filter models designed and manufactured out of Urjita spanning six different technologies. These products are used by thousands of customers in some of the world’s most advanced wireless applications.
True to Mini-Circuits’ founding values laid down by Kaylie himself, Urjita is constantly finding new ways to continuously improve in every aspect of business. The evidence lies within the success the team has seen under the guidance of Gunasekar Mandalap, and the results of hard work, dedication and resilience in the best and the worst of times. No matter the situation, Urjita members remain strong and focused on their goals.
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