Korean EMS Manufacturing Briefing at Garden Suite Hotel

Plenty of free lunches come with a sales pitch. This one is upfront about it, and the pitch is a factory. On Tuesday, October 13, SESUNG Co., Ltd., a Korean electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company, brings its engineering and business development team to the Garden Suite Hotel on South Western Avenue for a small in-person briefing. It starts at 11 am, and the listing blocks out an hour.

It's an unusual pick for a list of things to do in Los Angeles. Still, if your job involves getting circuit boards built or plastic parts molded, you rarely get to question a contract manufacturer's engineers face to face without a flight to Asia.

Who it's for

The session is aimed squarely at people who buy manufacturing. The organizers' target list covers sourcing, engineering and operations leads at companies making medical devices, aerospace and avionics hardware, robotics and automation gear, or industrial instruments.

SESUNG leans hard on its certifications: ISO 9001 and 14001, IPC-A-610 for electronics assembly, and KOLAS, Korea's lab accreditation scheme. If your products live or die on audits, those letters will matter to you. The company says it has been manufacturing for more than 25 years and was ranked a Top EMS Provider in Asia-Pacific in 2022. It names Honeywell, Hanwha and RAFAEL among its current partners and says references are available on request.

What happens in the room

SESUNG is selling one-stop production. PCB assembly (surface-mount and through-hole), precision CNC machining, injection molding and new-product-introduction engineering all sit under one roof, so you aren't coordinating separate vendors for the board, the housing and the machined parts. The organizers call it a small working session rather than a trade-show booth, with one-on-one time with the engineers and no sales script.

There's a cost angle too. If you're pricing alternatives to suppliers in China, the team says it will walk through honest comparisons. Bring your current quotes, a bill of materials, or a drawing of the part that keeps giving you trouble. An hour goes further that way than it would on a slide deck.

Lunch, the gift card and registration

Admission is free. Every registered company gets a complimentary lunch and a $50 gift card, capped at one card per company. Seats are limited and registration is required, so claim a spot through the AllEvents listing, posted by Yes Class LLC. Can't make the LA date? SESUNG runs a second session in San Jose on October 16 and offers virtual meetings as well.

Getting there

The Garden Suite Hotel is at 681 S Western Ave in Koreatown. Street parking around Wilshire and Western gets tight by late morning, so leave extra time or plan on a paid lot. The train is easier: Metro's D Line stops at Wilshire/Western, a short walk from the hotel, and the 207 bus runs right along Western Avenue.

For the rest of this fall's Things Happening In Los Angeles, browse events around Los Angeles or the arts and culture calendar. Get there a few minutes before 11. With one hour on the clock and a table full of engineers, the first questions get the longest answers.