PFK ELECTRONICS
Surface Mounted Device (SMD)
INNOVATIVE ELECTRONIC DESIGN
PFK Electronics was founded in 1985 and is based in Umbilo Road Durban with regional sales offices in Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth and in the United Kingdom.
The company has grown into a major design and manufacturing body of electronic vehicle security systems for global markets. PFK Electronics is an ISO TS 16949 and ISO 14001 accredited company. The company has excelled in various niche markets within the automotive electronic security systems, in supplying original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), the aftermarket, major fleet and freight companies, as well as the public transport sector. The Autowatch range of aftermarket security products have been a market leader for many years with a 65% local market share with products distributed through approximately 500 fitment centers throughout South Africa. This is achieved through the inherent quality of the Autowatch range of products. PFK is an approved first tier supplier of OEMs in South Africa, UK, Malaysia and the USA.
Since 1996, PFK Electronics has experienced annual growth in excess of 30%. Distribution is carried out worldwide via a network of dedicated global distributors with up to 70 % of PFK's products exported to 25 countries worldwide.
The company's greatest strength is its innovative electronic design capability, coupled with its in-house, high volume, state of the art automated surface mounted device (SMD) manufacturing facility. This has enabled the company to evolve into a customer focused supplier of leading automotive electronic systems. PFK Electronics employs over 400 employees, encompassing design engineers, support technicians, accountants, marketers and production managers, and a dedicated production team.
DESIGN CAPABILITIES
PFK's design team is situated in Durban, South Africa. The innovative and leading edge designs produced is what has maintained PFK's leadership in the automotive security arena. The company has in-house capability of taking a project from concept to final production encompassing the complete electronic and mechanical design and industrialization.
MANUFACTURING
Due to the relatively low cost of skilled labour in South Africa, the manufacturing model used is based on sharing automated production technology with manual labour. The SMD production is therefore fully automated and accomplished via a totally automated (capital intensive) process using automated screen printers, robotic pick-and-place SMD machines, reflow ovens and optical inspection with X-ray scanning for failure analysis and problem solving. The thru-hole components are manually inserted and all testing is done via computer based automated test equipment.
The same applies to the manufacturing of looms (harnesses) where high volume runners are produced via fully automated machines and low volume units in turn made manually.
ALCOHOL BREATHALYZER BASED IMMOBILIZERS
PFK is a leading designer and producer of Alcohol breathalyzer based immobilizers (also known as Alcolocks) supplied mainly to Europe and Scandinavia. PFK has recently launched a tethered system which specifically targets the South African, USA and Australian markets. All Alcolocks from PFK meet the stringent CENELEC European standard for Alcolocks.
CANBus ENABLED SYSTEMS
PFK's range of products have a distinct advantage in that they are CANBus enabled. The Controller Area Network or CAN is a data bus utilized by vehicle manufacturers to reduce an unnecessary excess of copper wire used in a vehicle. Since it comprises of a two wire bus system it simplifies the installation of peripherals such as Alarms and Tracking systems in a vehicle, while also adding additional functionality since the bus allows direct access to other systems and peripherals. CANBus is becoming a standard global automotive feature.
