This morning, Stern Pinball held a seminar at Pinball Expo. The presentation included a virtual tour of the Stern factory and a Q&A session with the company's founder, Gary Stern, and President, Seth Davis. The people who I spoke with about the presentation took away major points from it. First is the opposite directions that Stern and Jersey Jack Pinball seem to be heading with manufacturing.
While during their in-person Expo factory tour, Jersey Jack made it very clear they currently outsource a lot of their low level manufacturing and plan to continue doing so, Stern Pinball seems to have begun taking much more of its manufacturing process in-house. Stern now produces its own wiring harness, drills and levels playfields in their factory and Gary Stern stated that they are moving towards printing their own playfields as well, likely after the Company moves to its new, bigger factory.
The second major point is that Stern increasingly views itself as a high tech company that is going to continue to grow through investment in things like the cloud and connectivity. They mentioned that they are exploring doing things with virtual and digital pinball, which they view as a way to help grow their customer base. Stern looks at pinball as its gateway into the multi-billion dollar games industry. It was clear to those who saw Stern's presentation that the company has big plans for the future.
Thanks to Dan Rosenstein and the Pinball Expo social media accounts for the pictures and information.
