Strattec Security Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, and markets automotive access control products.
The company’s products include mechanical locks and keys, electronically enhanced locks and keys, passive entry passive start systems (PEPS), steering column and instrument panel ignition lock housings, latches, power sliding side door systems, power tailgate systems, power lift gate systems, power deck lid systems, door handles and related products for primarily North American automot...
Strattec Security Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, and markets automotive access control products.
The company’s products include mechanical locks and keys, electronically enhanced locks and keys, passive entry passive start systems (PEPS), steering column and instrument panel ignition lock housings, latches, power sliding side door systems, power tailgate systems, power lift gate systems, power deck lid systems, door handles and related products for primarily North American automotive customers.
The company also supplies global automotive manufacturers through a unique strategic relationship with WITTE Automotive (WITTE) of Velbert, Germany and ADAC Plastics Inc., doing business as ADAC Automotive (ADAC), of Grand Rapids, Michigan called VAST Automotive Group (VAST). Under this unique strategic relationship STRATTEC, WITTE and ADAC market the products of each company to global customers under the VAST Automotive Group brand name (as more fully described under Vehicle Access Systems Technology LLC herein). The company’s products are shipped to customer locations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, South America, Korea, China and India, and the company, along with its VAST LLC partners, provide full service and aftermarket support for each VAST Automotive Group partners’ products.
Products
The company’s traditional products are lock sets (locks and keys) for cars and light trucks. Typically, two keys are provided with each vehicle lockset. Most of the vehicles the company supplies are using keys with sophisticated radio frequency identification technology for additional theft prevention. Keys with remote entry devices integrated into a single unit and bladeless electronic keys, as well as turn-key passive entry passive start systems (PEPS) have been added to its product line and are gaining in popularity.
Ignition lock housings represent another access control product for the company. These housings are the mating part for the company’s ignition locks and typically are part of the steering column structure, although there are instrument panel-mounted versions for certain vehicle applications. These housings are either die cast from zinc or injection molded plastic and may include electronic components for theft deterrent systems.
The company has developed and is continuing to develop access control products, including trunk latches, lift gate latches, tailgate latches, hood latches, side door latches and related hardware. With its acquisition of Delphi Corporation’s Power Products Group in 2009, the company has been supplying and continue to supply various power access devices for sliding side doors, tailgates, lift gates and trunk lids to its automotive industry customers. Through a joint venture formed with ADAC Automotive during fiscal 2007, it also supplies painted and non-painted door handles and components and related vehicle access hardware.
In recent years, more and more vehicle access systems have moved from purely mechanical components to integrated electro-mechanical systems. The company has been at the forefront of this new technology, working with Original Equipment Manufacturers’ (OEMs) product development and purchasing groups to provide cost-effective, innovative solutions to the challenges facing its customers.
The company’s customer-focused structure and formalized product development process helps it identify and meet customer needs in the shortest time possible. From concept and design, through implementation and into the aftermarket, the company delivers products that provide the optimum value solution to security and access control requirements. The company has a comprehensive Products & Solutions portfolio that can be viewed on its website at www.strattec.com.
To maintain a strong focus on each of these access control products, the company has Product Business Managers who oversee the product’s entire life cycle, including product concept, application, manufacturing, warranty analysis, service/aftermarket, and financial/commercial issues. The Product Business Managers work closely with the company’s sales organization, its engineering group, and its manufacturing operations to ensure their products are receiving the right amount of quality attention so that their value to the company and the market place is enhanced.
Markets
The company is a direct supplier to OEM automotive and light truck manufacturers, as well as other transportation-related manufacturers. The company’s largest customers are Stellantis, General Motors Company and Ford Motor Company. The company’s access control product mix varies by customer, but generally its overall sales tend to be highest in door handles and trim components produced by ADAC-STRATTEC de Mexico, followed by lock and key, including aftermarket produced by STRATTEC de Mexico, power access products produced by STRATTEC Power Access de Mexico, and latch mechanisms and ignition lock housing components produced by STRATTEC de Mexico.
Direct sales to various OEMs represented approximately 79% of the company’s total sales for both fiscal 2022 and 2021. The remainder of the company’s revenue is received primarily through sales to the OEM service channels, the aftermarket and Tier 1 automotive supplier customers, and sales of certain products to non-automotive commercial customers.
Sales to the company’s major automotive customers, both OEM and Tier 1, are coordinated through direct sales personnel located in its Detroit-area office. Sales are also facilitated through daily interaction between the company’s Program Managers, Application Engineers and other product engineering personnel. Sales to other OEM customers are accomplished through a combination of the company’s sales personnel located in Detroit and personnel in its Milwaukee headquarters office.
The majority of the company’s OEM products are sold in North America. While some exporting is done to Tier 1 and automotive assembly plants in Europe, Asia and South America, the company is in the process of expanding its presence in these markets and elsewhere through the Vehicle Access Systems Technology LLC (VAST LLC) joint venture it jointly owns with WITTE Automotive and ADAC Automotive.
The company distributes its components and security products to the automotive aftermarket through approximately 50 authorized wholesale distributors, as well as other marketers and users of component parts, including export customers. Increasingly, the company’s products find their way into the retail channel, specifically the hardware store channel. The company’s ability to provide a full line of keys to that channel has been accomplished through the introduction of the STRATTEC XL key line. This extension to the company’s product line includes keys that it does not supply on an OEM basis, including keys for Toyota, Honda and other popular domestic and import vehicles. This extended line of keys enables automotive repair specialists to satisfy consumer needs for repair or replacement parts. The company’s aftermarket activities are serviced through a warehousing operation in El Paso, Texas.
Customer Sales Focus
To bring the proper focus to the relationships with its major customers, the company has six customer-focused teams, each with a Director of Sales, one or two Engineering Program Managers and various Customer Application Engineers. In addition to customer teams for General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, the company has teams for New Domestic Vehicle Manufacturers (primarily the Japanese and Korean automotive manufactures), User Interface Controls customers, Tier 1 customers, and Service and Aftermarket customers. Sales and engineering for ADAC-STRATTEC LLC are supported by its partner in this joint venture, ADAC Automotive.
Each Sales Director is responsible for the overall relationship between the company and a specific customer group. Program Managers are responsible for coordinating cross functional activities while managing new product programs for their customers.
Product Engineering Focus
To best serve its customers’ product needs, STRATTEC’s engineering resources are organized into groups which focus on specific access control applications. The company has six engineering groups: Locks and Keys, Aftermarket, Latches, Power Access Devices, User Interface Controls and Wireless Systems. Each group has a Product Business Manager, an Engineering Manager and a complement of skilled engineers who design and develop products for specific applications. In doing this, each engineering group works closely with both the customer and product teams, Engineering Program Managers, and Application Engineers.
Vehicle Access Systems Technology LLC
In fiscal 2001, the company entered into a formal alliance with WITTE-Velbert GmbH, an automotive supplier based in Germany which designs, develops, manufactures and markets automotive access control products for European-based customers. This alliance consisted of two initiatives. The first was a set of legal agreements, which allowed the company to manufacture and market WITTE’s core products in North America, and WITTE to manufacture and market STRATTEC’s core products in Europe. The second initiative was a 50:50 joint venture, WITTE-STRATTEC LLC, to invest in operations with local partners in strategic markets outside of Europe and North America.
In February of 2006, the company announced the expansion of this alliance and related joint venture with the addition of a third partner, ADAC Plastics, Inc. ADAC, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, adds North American expertise in door handles, a part of WITTE’s core product line that the company did not support, and an expertise in color-matched painting of these components.
With the expansion of the alliance, the company can offer a full range of access control related products available on a global basis to support customer programs. To identify this powerful combination of independent companies focused on working together, it renamed the joint venture Vehicle Access Systems Technology LLC (VAST LLC). The company refers to the combination of the alliance structure and joint venture as VAST Automotive Group (VAST). WITTE is called WITTE Automotive, and ADAC is doing business as ADAC Automotive. The company has adopted a common graphic image in which it shares a logo mark and colors, and a specific VAST logo used on the partners’ printed and electronic presentation materials.
On April 30, 2015, VAST LLC executed a purchase agreement to become a 50:50 Joint Venture partner with Minda Management Services Limited, an affiliate of both Minda Corporation Limited and Spark Minda, Ashok Minda Group of New Delhi, India (collectively, Minda). As part of this transaction, VAST acquired a fifty percent equity interest in the former Minda-Valeo Security Systems joint venture entity, based in Pune, India. This joint venture entity was renamed Minda-VAST Access Systems (Minda-VAST).
VAST is the embodiment of STRATTEC’s, WITTE’s and ADAC’s globalization strategy. Collectively as a group, the company is developing VAST as a global brand with which it is jointly pursuing business with identified global customers. Those identified customers are General Motors, Ford, Stellantis, Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler, Honda, Volvo, Renault/Nissan and Hyundai/Kia.
STRATTEC de MEXICO
The company has formed STRATTEC de Mexico as a wholly owned subsidiary of the company to own and operate three production facilities in Juarez, Mexico. At these three facilities it houses assembly operations for locksets and ignition lock housings, its key finishing and plastic injection molding operations, its assembly operations for ADAC-STRATTEC de Mexico and its latch and power access assembly operations for STRATTEC POWER ACCESS de Mexico.
ADAC-STRATTEC LLC and ADAC-STRATTEC de MEXICO
During 2007, the company formed a new entity with ADAC Automotive called ADAC-STRATTEC LLC including a wholly owned Mexican subsidiary ADAC-STRATTEC de Mexico (collectively, ASdM). The purpose of this joint venture is to produce certain ADAC and STRATTEC products utilizing ADAC’s plastic molding injection expertise and STRATTEC’s assembly capability. ASdM operates out of defined space in STRATTEC de Mexico Plant No. 2 located in Juarez, Mexico. Products from this joint venture include non-painted door handle components and exterior trim components for OEM customers producing in North America. The company owns 51% of this joint venture and its financial results are consolidated into STRATTEC’s financial statements.
STRATTEC POWER ACCESS LLC and STRATTEC POWER ACCESS de MEXICO
During fiscal year 2009, the company formed a new subsidiary with WITTE Automotive called STRATTEC POWER ACCESS LLC (SPA) to acquire the North American business of the Delphi Power Products Group. WITTE is a 20 percent minority owner. SPA in turn owns 100 percent of a Mexican subsidiary, STRATTEC POWER ACCESS de Mexico. The purpose of this subsidiary is to produce power access devices for sliding side doors, tailgates, lift gates, trunk lids and other related products. STRATTEC POWER ACCESS de Mexico operates out of defined space in STRATTEC de Mexico Plant No. 3 located in Juarez, Mexico.
Seasonal Nature of the Business
Typically, the months of July and August are relatively slow as summer vacation shutdowns and model year changeovers occur at the automotive assembly plants. September volumes increase rapidly as each new model year (year ended July 3, 2022) begins. This volume strength continues through October and into early November. As the holiday and winter seasons approach, the demand for automobiles slows, as does production. March usually brings a major sales and production increase, which then continues through most of June. This results in the company’s first fiscal quarter sales and operating results typically being its weakest, with the remaining quarters being more consistent. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the conflict in the Ukraine have adversely impacted the timing, availability and cost of certain material component parts and raw materials for the production of its products and the products of its customers. These events have temporarily disrupted the company’s normal seasonal sales patterns during fiscal 2022.
Trademarks
The company’s trademarks are STRATTEC and STRATTEC with logo.
Dependence Upon Significant Customers
A very significant portion of the company’s annual sales are to General Motors Company, Ford Motor Company, and Stellantis.
The company has enjoyed good relationships with General Motors Company, Stellantis, Ford Motor Company and other customers in the past, and expects to continue to do so in the future.
Sales and Marketing
The company provides its customers with engineered access control products, including locksets, fobs, push button passive entry passive start ignition systems, steering column lock housings, electromechanical latches, power sliding door systems, power tailgate systems, power liftgate systems, power decklids, painted and non-painted door handles, door handle components and trim and other access products which are unique to specific vehicles. Any given vehicle will typically take 1 to 3 years of development and engineering design time prior to being offered to the public. The access control products are designed concurrently with the vehicle. Therefore, commitment to the company as the production source for such products and components occurs 1 to 3 years prior to the start of production for such components. The company employs an engineering staff that assists in providing design and technical solutions to its customers. The company regularly provides innovative design proposals for its product offerings to its customers.
Competition
The company’s lockset, steering column lock housing, latches and power access competitors include Huf North America, Ushin, Valeo, Tokai-Rika, Alpha-Tech, Honda Lock, Shin Chang, Magna, Edscha, Stabilus, Aisin, Brose, Mitsuba, Ohi, Kiekert, Inteva, Novares and Gecom.
Research and Development
For the year ended July 3, 2022, the company incurred approximately $12.2 million on research and development.
Environmental Compliance
As is the case with other manufacturers, the company is subject to Federal, state, local and foreign laws and other legal requirements relating to the generation, storage, transport, treatment and disposal of materials as a result of its manufacturing and assembly operations. These laws include the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (as amended), the Clean Air Act (as amended), the Clean Water Act of 1990 (as amended) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (as amended).
History
Strattec Security Corporation was founded in 1908. The company was incorporated in 1994.
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