Making electronics in Winthrop

Alternative Manufacturing Inc.

Scot Story, vice president of sales and marketing

Company’s origin story: AMI was founded in 1989 by two individuals who left the Digital Equipment Corp. plant in Augusta to venture out on their own. AMI has been 100 percent employee-owned since 2009.

Number of employees/locations: 70 employees in Winthrop; two at our Electronics Prototyping Center in Somerville, Mass. (opened in the past 18 months).

You’re at a dinner party. You’re asked, ‘What does your company make?’ And you say: AMI is an electronic contract manufacturer. We build circuit boards and electronic products for other companies based on their designs.

Who — and where — are your customers? The products that AMI manufacturers are primarily for industrial equipment. The products include security systems, solar panel controls and a variety of Internet-enabled devices. Our customers are primarily in the Northeast, including a number from Maine, but AMI also has customers in Canada, Iceland and even Silicon Valley.

Hardest thing about doing business in Maine? Maine doesn’t have a large contingent of companies developing electronic products, which can make us seem remote to potential customers, even to those in the Boston area.

The best? Labor and facility costs are more advantageous in Maine compared with other U.S. competition.

That thing that sets you apart from the competition: AMI focuses on excellent customer service for all sizes of customers (start-ups to huge corporations). One distinguishing aspect is that AMI provides open-book pricing to all its customers, which gives access to detailed material costs, labor costs and AMI’s profit margins, giving customers insight to what drives the product cost of their design and helps achieve their cost targets.

Maine makes it

From awnings to espresso machines, to what one inventor hopes is the next great idea in gaming, manufacturing is slowly rebounding in Maine. Here are some examples: