Electrocomponents Plans U.S. Innovation Hub & Customer Demonstration Center in Bryan-College Station, Texas
November 10, 2021
Electrocomponents plc recently announced a new partnership that will establish the company’s first innovation hub and customer demonstration center in North America. The partnership with Lake Walk in Bryan-College Station, Texas, is a key part of Electrocomponents’ global innovation and customer engagement strategy and will include outfitting of 8,000 square feet of custom collaboration, lab and demonstration space staffed by a dedicated onsite team of experts from the company’s Allied Electronics & Automation, DesignSpark, OKdo, and Synovos brands.
The new facility will offer unique access to tools, resources, expertise, products, and support for designers, engineers, inventors, and start-ups, as well as the company’s existing customers and suppliers. In addition, it will provide unique prototyping facilities onsite for start-ups and subject matter experts to use, along with consulting services to aid in testing, development, and launching of new products and services.
“We are very excited to partner with Lake Walk on this truly innovative facility – our first in North America. We’ve long had DesignSpark, our virtual design engineering community, and platform, and this partnership will now add a corresponding fully connected physical space to help innovators and engineers create and improve the next generation of technology,” said Mike Bray, Vice President of Innovation and DesignSpark for Electrocomponents.
“Lake Walk is centrally located close to Texas’ most innovative and influential cities, as well as to Texas A&M University. This positioning represents an optimal location where innovation can be brought to life, fueling our purpose of Making Amazing Happen for a Better World,” said Ken Bradley, President of Fort Worth-based Allied Electronics & Automation.
The partnership between Electrocomponents and Lake Walk includes naming rights for the facility formerly known as the Lake Walk Innovation Center, which will now be named the DesignSpark Innovation Center. To optimize the new North America facility, Electrocomponents will leverage best practices and lessons learned from its work with similar innovation labs in Europe.
“We acquired this building and started the Innovation Center with just this purpose in mind, to create a meaningful place of global impact at the intersection of technology and community,” said Spencer Clements of Traditions Acquisition Partnership, the General Partner of the Center. “The DesignSpark Innovation Center is the perfect name and reflects not only a key brand within Electrocomponents but also the culture of creativity that emanates from all of Lake Walk. We are grateful for Electrocomponents’ vision and look forward to working with this leading-edge enterprise as we continue to develop Lake Walk as a place for best-in-class companies, ideas, and talent.”
The company will be hiring additional staff for the DesignSpark Innovation Center in the coming months, and more information about these openings, when they become active, can be found at https://www.alliedelec.com/careers/
“We at the city of Bryan are delighted to welcome Electrocomponents, especially since their presence at the DesignSpark Innovation Center will mark their first innovation hub in North America,” said Andrew Nelson, Mayor of the City of Bryan. “The addition of their multiple brands to the growing entrepreneurial community and international partnerships brings more emerging technologies and capital benefitting Texas A&M and Bryan-College Station.”
