Pros
Plexus treats its employees well, and for salary employees offers acceptable benefits packages. Plexus is in a pretty stable industry, and the Chicago location is a majority medical contract manufacturing, so there is very low risk of broad layoffs. They are seeing some steady growth.
Cons
Plexus manufacturing in Chicago seems to have a problem with hiring talented and motivated individuals. It seems as though all the talent gets a feel for a couple of years and then leaves, likely due to lack of engagement and career growth opportunities. Perhaps they do not offer very competitive salaries or the location is undesirable. There are many ex-military employees throughout middle management, and the organization is very rigidly structured. It seems like management focuses on the wrong areas to spend money - basic manufacturing and IT systems are very antiquated, making everyone's daily job frustrating, but there is no shortage of "window dressing" to wow potential new customers during tours of the factory. Many departments (quality, engineering, manufacturing) have engineers that are spread too thin, and not able to give enough focus on getting tasks done correctly in a timely manner. You can tell that everyone is stressed and overworked. Recent hires in the program management (PM) group seem to be in over their heads, and not able to effectively lead the Plexus team (quality, materials, test, manufacturing), or manage the relationship or expectations with the customer team. OILs quickly become stale, meetings become a complete waste of time. PMs have been referred to as "glorified event planners asked to manage electronics manufacturing" - they have little to no technical knowledge - they are unable to lead teams of technical manufacturing engineers.
