Comtek (renamed Cokeva), an electronics repair company, was founded in 1989 by Ann Nguyen. Ann was a visionary in the industry and built her company around two fundamental principles, quality and customer service. By over-delivering results to a growing list of customers, the company began to earn a reputation as a trusted partner. Ann insisted on treating customers like family. This type of relationship enabled the company to help their customers navigate the turbulent aftermarket services industry. There were challenging economic cycles, ever-increasing service level requirements and rapidly changing technologies. At a time when there were many other repair companies, it was these same values and commitment to quality and customer service that kept the company growing.
Since the inception of the company, Cokeva has expanded into multiple industries, grown its service and logistics capabilities, and greatly expanded its customer base. Today, Cokeva is a global leader in the aftermarket repair & services industry. Cokeva is headquartered in Roseville, California and operates from a 220,000 square-foot plant, with the highest caliber service technicians and engineers in the industry. Given the “Top 100 Great Supply Chain Partner” award year after year, Cokeva is proud to be serving its customers with outstanding service and quality as a global technology leader.
Comtek (renamed Cokeva), an electronics repair company, was founded in 1989 by Ann Nguyen. Ann was a visionary in the industry and built her company around two fundamental principles, quality and customer service. By over-delivering results to a growing list of customers, the company began to earn a reputation as a trusted partner. Ann insisted on treating customers like family. This type of relationship enabled the company to help their customers navigate the turbulent aftermarket services industry. There were challenging economic cycles, ever-increasing service level requirements and rapidly changing technologies. At a time when there were many other repair companies, it was these same values and commitment to quality and customer service that kept the company growing.
Since the inception of the company, Cokeva has expanded into multiple industries, grown its service and logistics capabilities, and greatly expanded its customer base. Today, Cokeva is a global leader in the aftermarket repair & services industry. Cokeva is headquartered in Roseville, California and operates from a 220,000 square-foot plant, with the highest caliber service technicians and engineers in the industry. Given the “Top 100 Great Supply Chain Partner” award year after year, Cokeva is proud to be serving its customers with outstanding service and quality as a global technology leader.
Timeline
1989
OEM Partnership for Technical Services
Cokeva is a third party depot repair provider. What this means is that Cokeva provides the behind the scenes repair of our customer’s products, for our customers.
The typical flow is that a unit will fail in the field and contact is made with the OEM. The OEM will then signal Cokeva to send the end user a replacement unit. This is called an “advance exchange”. After the end customer receives their replacement unit, they will then send the failed part to Cokeva, who will then repair the part and put it back into the service and support supply chain. Cokeva performs not only the “break fix” service, they also provide all the technical support that goes along with managing the repair activities. Cokeva will often develop the repair process as well as establish the database to capture the failure information. Critical to repairing products is providing root cause analysis of not only what is failing, but why it is failing. This allows our OEMs to continuously improve the quality of their products.
2002
Direct Fulfillment and B2B Integration
Cokeva provides flexible solutions for our customers. While repair is the focus of our value add, we also provide warehousing and fulfillment services. Cokeva’s 92,000 sqft warehouse holds many of our customer’s service parts. Cokeva can serve as a central warehouse and provide direct shipment to the end customer. This can save time as well as logistics costs. Cokeva’s IT systems are also capable of B2B integration with our customer’s IT systems. Cokeva transitioned to Oracle in 2018 and its quality information system, eQuantus, is fully capable of sharing data with our customer’s systems.
2003
ISO 9001:2008 Certified
Cokeva has always taken great pride in the high quality it has delivered to customers. The total quality culture was adopted when Ann originally started the business, but it was later that Cokeva decided to achieve formal certification. Cokeva achieved ISO 9001:2008 certification for its repair and test operations and processes in 2003. ISO 9001, a global standard for best practices in quality management, requires that an organization maintain specific levels of quality while also pursuing continuous, systematic improvement of the company’s processes.
Having already instilled a commitment to quality processes, it was not hard to take this formal step in 2003. Cokeva has demonstrated dedication to creating, establishing, and deploying best practices that exceed mandatory standards outlined by ISO 9001.
2007
Class 100 / Level 5 Clean Room
Cokeva operates a 3,000 square foot, class 100, level 5 clean room within its Roseville repair facility. The clean room gives Cokeva the capability to perform sensitive repairs and perform controlled environment build/assembly work.
Cokeva is also able to offer screening and packaging services on photographic, optical/mechanical and semiconductor equipment. The clean room will also enable Cokeva to provide services for storage and LCD technologies.
The clean room is designed in accordance with laminar flow principles with unidirectional filtered airflow flowing at a uniform velocity range with minimal turbulence. The principle is based on removing any dust in the airflow via the shortest route. The greater rate that this airstream is renewed, the lower any contamination build up and a higher rate impurity dilution. Cokeva uses a vertical down-flow of filtered air while vents in the base of the walls provide an exit. The room features positive-pressure where the air pressure inside is greater than the outside, preventing contaminants from entering the room.
The classification refers to the maximum number and size of particles (in microns) permitted per volume of air. In the Class 100 clean room, only 100 particles measuring about 0.5 micron are allowed per cubic feet of air. A micron is a millionth of a meter — for a sense of how small it is, the human hair measures about 100 microns wide.
A clean room is an environment, typically used in manufacturing or scientific research that has a low level of environmental pollutants such as dust, airborne microbes, aerosol particles and chemical vapors. The temperature and humidity is controlled to protect sensitive equipment from contamination. Cokeva’s clean room is certified annually. Tests are performed on filters, airflow velocity, airborne particle count and classification, room pressures and temperature/humidity.
2010
Cokeva Name Change
Comtek Computer Systems Inc. officially changed its name to Cokeva (kō kē’ vŭ) in 2010. There were a few factors driving Comtek to change its name, but the main factor was that Comtek Computer Systems did not accurately reflect the markets we served; Semi-Conductor test equipment, medical, instrumentation and IT equipment.
Cokeva combines parts of ‘Comtek,’ ‘Kevin’ and ‘Ann’ into one word that wasn’t already associated with another company.
2012
Building Acquisition
Cokeva has had a presence in Placer County for more than two decades in leased facilities. Cokeva was seeking space to expand in close proximity to its current location when Hewlett Packard put one of the buildings on their campus for sale. The facility was a perfect fit for the business and the operation was relocated to its current facility in Roseville in 2012.
2014
ISO 13485:2003
Cokeva received ISO 13485:2003 certification. This certification is an internationally agreed standard that sets out the requirements for a quality management system specific to the medical devices industry.
This independent certification validates Cokeva’s long-standing commitment to quality, meeting the stringent requirements of customers in the medical device market. It also serves as a strong foundation for its medical device initiatives. The scope of Cokeva’s certification include repair and refurbishment, process and test, engineering support and logistics management services to medical device customers.
Although Cokeva originally sought this certification to enable support of medical device companies, other non-medical customers received benefits from this standard. Included are specific requirements for inspection and traceability which are very helpful to all customers using a repair partner.
Between the two powerful ISO quality standards (9001:2008 & 13485:2003), customers are provided with complete assurance of operations at the highest quality standards. Additionally, 13485 assures all regulatory and compliance requirements are met for products and services.