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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Making His Move

In the training room at Delta Tau Data Systems, Inc. are glass cases containing many examples of the motion control systems made by the company. Opening one of the cases, Dominic Dimitri, head of sales and marketing and son of the company’s founder, removes an approximately 16-inch by 8-inch components board called the MC-2, a one-axis controller that was the first the company made. “I am quite certain this was built in our home, in the kitchen,” Dimitri said, holding the device in his hands. In the 30 years the Valley-based company has been in business, that first controller has been replaced multiple times by units of increasing sophistication, complexity and power. The most current Delta Tau motion controller the PMAC is 4 inches square and capable of controlling up to 32 motors and amplifiers. The device is the brains behind any automated process. While the biggest volume of the company’s business comes from the semiconductor industry, Delta Tau motion control systems are also found on Hollywood film sets, used to detect flaws in military jets and were responsible for grinding the lenses on the Hubble space telescope. Everyday items like car tires, razor blades, contact lenses and even the cardboard holders on Starbucks coffee cups were created with Delta Tau motion controllers. “Their products are so flexible and dynamic they can be used in anything,” said Stewart Prince, a professor in mechanical engineering at California State University, Northridge. Delta Tau now seeks to transition into a service company; integrating the hardware with the software and peripheral equipment into a complete package that will meet the needs of the client. It’s a move to a business model other motion control companies are adopting. While larger firms bring all the pieces under one roof through acquisitions, Delta Tau looks internally to expand its product line. “It’s a different way of doing business,” Dimitri said. “Instead of just selling a motion controller, we’re going to sell a solution.” Having started in the Dimitri family home in Northridge, Delta Tau now occupies a 120,000-square foot research and manufacturing facility in Chatsworth. The making, testing and shipping of circuit boards takes up much of the first floor; engineering and training take place on the second. The Chatsworth headquarters is supplemented by three U.S. sales offices and four overseas offices. Family patriarch Dimitri Dimitri started the company in 1976, providing consulting and freelance engineering services. Five years later, Delta Tau (the fourth and nineteenth letters of the Greek alphabet) became product-oriented when the elder Dimitri assembled the first motion controller. The company quickly outgrew the garage at the family home and moved to a new location with 3,000 square feet of space on Lassen Street in Chatsworth across the street from where the company is located today. The decision three years ago to bring manufacturing in-house was a turning point for the company, requiring a large investment in equipment and a rise in operational expenses. It took a full year to get up to 80 percent of the production demand. On the manufacturing floor are two lines that produce the motion control circuit boards and a third line for prototypes or limited-run boards. The lines are primarily automated although there are still some tasks better suited for human hands, such as checking and testing the boards to make sure there are no flaws. “It is a nice return on the investment at this point,” Dimitri said. “We are starting to reap some benefits.” Delta Tau positioned itself from the beginning at the top end of the industry with very precise, super-fast controllers based on an efficient code. Creating the controllers, Dimitri said, is all just number crunching and mathematics; calculations of velocities and trajectories. The credit goes to the elder Dimitri and the staff of engineers, some of whom have been with the company for more than 25 years. “Without them we wouldn’t be who we are,” Dimitri said. The company has a reputation as being on the cutting edge of motion control technology. Most of its profits are funneled back into research and development. Because Delta Tau remains an independent company, it can more easily redirect its R & D; and product development to meet constantly changing marketplace demands whereas larger companies can’t do that because of corporate red tape and hierarchy, said Dennis Erickson, with Axis New England, a distributor of Delta Tau’s products. “That is a benefit for them,” Erickson said. Delta Tau has the added strength of a network of distributors which have technical people on staff who can apply the motion controllers for their clients, Erickson added. While the semiconductor industry provides a large client base, the company also supplies controllers to manufacturers of liquid crystal display screens used in consumer electronic products like televisions and cell phones. As customers dwindled in the aerospace and machine tooling industries, other sectors began using motion-controlled automated processes, such as the medical field with the manufacture of angioplasty stents and the use of robotic arms in surgery. Automation, Dimitri said, will be the way for the U.S. to compete with developing countries that are luring away business with their cheap labor. With automated equipment, a company can run around the clock and produce cheaper and higher quality products. “That is how the U.S. will rebound and stay afloat,” Dimitri said. With the next-generation controller going to market at the end of the year, Delta Tau expects a growth spurt in its business. Increased revenues aren’t all that interests the company. Delta Tau involves itself with educating the next generation of engineers and scientists by donating equipment to colleges and universities around the world. At CSUN, the company helped furnish the new mechatronics lab in the college of engineering and computer science. Students familiar with Delta Tau’s products make themselves valuable to the company as a potential employee or as an employee at a firm using its controllers, said Prince, adding he knows of at least 10 former students now working at Delta Tau. SPOTLIGHT: Delta Tau Data Systems, Inc: Chatsworth Year Founded: 1981 Revenues in 2004: $28 million Revenues in 2006: $35 million Employees in 2004: 130 Employees in 2007: 170 Goal: To open locations in the Conejo Valley, Burbank/Glendale area and Downtown Los Angeles.

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