September 15th, 2022 marked the 30th anniversary of HIWIN Corporation’s work in motion control and system technology in North America. The company that started out selling ballscrews alone now supplies linear, rotary, and multi-axis motion to the medical, laboratory, packaging, and manufacturing industries.
1992
HIWIN Corporation founded in Glenview, Illinois
120,000 sq ft
The Huntley headquarters since 2017
2M lb
Product held in the attached distribution center
Four addresses in thirty years
HIWIN entered the United States in 1992 with a subsidiary in a 4,000 square foot facility in Glenview, Illinois, opened to bring the group’s ballscrew technology from Taiwan to the North American market. The brand was recognized quickly for its engineering, and the first team’s hands-on approach to customer contact made an impression that outran the building: demand for new products soon outgrew Glenview.
A larger facility in Mount Prospect opened in 1998. Orders kept growing, in customer count and in products offered, and forced another move in 2008, to Elgin. By then it was clear that what HIWIN needed was not another building but a location that could grow with the business, positioned as a transportation hub for the US and North America and able to draw a qualified local workforce.
Huntley
Leadership found a 15-acre site in Huntley, Illinois’ Corporate Park with room left over for future expansion. The Village Board approved construction of the current 120,000 square foot office and warehouse in 2015, ground broke in 2016, and the team moved in during February 2017.
The headquarters pairs a training facility and expanded product displays with a quality and engineering lab. Attached to it is an ISO 9001-certified distribution center with an automated order picking system, and machining and assembly areas holding over two million pounds of product. The automation is what makes short lead times and on-time delivery possible.
“We have the products, the technology, and intelligence.”
From ballscrews to whole motion systems
The expanded facilities followed the expanded catalog. Patents in mechanical, electrical, and robotic systems produced linear motor components and stages, direct drive and torque motor rotary tables, AC servo motors, drives and controllers, industrial robotics, and DATORKER strain wave gearing systems, which together let a customer take an entire motion system from one supplier with compatibility guaranteed.
All of it rests on the people. As President Joe Jou put it, the company is ready to meet the demands of new applications, whatever those demands turn out to be.
