UL/CUL-listed retractile, curly, and coiled power cords engineered in North Branford, Connecticut and shipped to Illinois heavy-equipment, aerospace, food-and-beverage, pharmaceutical, and machine-tool manufacturers since 1947. Direct factory pricing, no minimum order quantity, 2–3 business day Midwest ground transit, custom builds in 4–6 weeks.
Illinois manufacturers source retractile, curly, and coiled cords from Autac because we sell direct from the same Connecticut factory where every cord is engineered, jacketed, heat-set, and tested — no Midwest distributor markup, no surprise lead times, no cross-border freight. From track-type tractor assembly at Caterpillar in East Peoria to combine and tractor lines at John Deere in Moline and East Moline, from aerospace test cells at Collins Aerospace and Woodward in Rockford to biscuit and snack lines at Mondelez in Chicago, Autac cordage shows up on Illinois OEM bills of materials because it is built to spec, listed for compliance, and shipped on a schedule you can plan around — just 2 to 3 business days by ground from Connecticut.
No Midwest distributor markup. Illinois buyers talk to engineering and place orders directly with our Connecticut manufacturing team.
400+ stock catalog part numbers with full lot traceability. OSHA-recognized listings and documentation for Illinois OEM audits.
The only 100% woman-owned UL-listed retractile cord manufacturer in the industry. Counts toward diversity-spend targets at large Illinois OEMs.
Prototype runs as small as one piece — ideal for Illinois's heavy-equipment and machine-tool engineering teams. Same factory team handles pilots and high-volume production.
Illinois is one of the deepest manufacturing economies in the Midwest, with five distinct clusters that all generate steady demand for industrial retractile, curly, and coiled cordage. Heavy equipment and off-highway machinery anchor the Peoria, Decatur, Aurora, and Quad Cities corridors. Rockford is the nation's sixth-largest aerospace hub. Food and beverage processing fills the Chicago metro and central Illinois. Pharmaceutical manufacturing concentrates around North Chicago and the northern suburbs. And a dense base of machinery, machine-tool, and metal-fabrication shops runs from Rockford through greater Chicago. Each cluster carries its own engineering requirements — current rating, jacket compound, flex life, shielding, environmental exposure — and the Autac product line maps directly to all five.
Illinois is the global heart of the off-highway equipment industry. Caterpillar builds large track-type tractors in East Peoria, mining trucks and powertrains in Decatur, and excavators, wheel loaders, and compactors in Aurora, with engine and component plants across the greater Peoria area. John Deere is headquartered in Moline and runs harvester, cylinder, and seeding-equipment plants across Moline and East Moline. Komatsu operates mining-equipment operations in the Peoria area, and a deep tier-one and tier-two supplier base feeds both OEMs. These operations run long, complex assembly lines and heavy-duty test cells that demand durable, traceable power and signal delivery to tool drops, torque stations, and fixtures.
Typical Illinois applications in this segment:
Recommended Autac products: TPR-jacketed retractile cords in 14 AWG and 12 AWG, 3-conductor / 15A configurations cover most assembly-line drops; custom retracted lengths from 18" to 36" are standard. Step up to 10 AWG / 20A for higher-current torque-tool and dyno applications. Auta-Prene thermoset rubber jackets resist the cutting fluids and coolants common on heavy-equipment lines. Browse the Retractile Cords hub for stock part numbers, or use the Build Your Cord tool to specify a custom configuration for your line.
Rockford is the sixth-largest aerospace hub in the United States, anchored by two major manufacturers and more than 100 supporting suppliers. Collins Aerospace designs and builds power-generation, electric-aircraft, and actuation systems in Rockford and is one of the city's largest employers. Woodward — founded in Rockford in 1870 — manufactures fuel-control and motion-control systems for aircraft and industrial turbines at its Loves Park / Rockford-area campus. The cluster supports AS9100, ITAR, and federal supplier-quality requirements across test cells, assembly fixtures, and clean-bench work areas.
Typical Illinois applications in this segment:
Recommended Autac products: TPR-jacketed retractile cords in 14 AWG and 12 AWG handle most assembly drops; 10 AWG / 20A configurations cover higher-current test-stand and GSE applications. For signal and instrumentation, 18 AWG and 16 AWG shielded retractile and curly builds protect data integrity. Browse the Retractile Cords hub or use Build Your Cord to specify a custom configuration. Autac is a US-only manufacturer with a US supply chain, which simplifies ITAR-program supplier qualification.
The Chicago metro and central Illinois form one of the largest food-and-beverage manufacturing concentrations in the country. Mondelez International runs flagship biscuit and snack lines in Chicago and is headquartered in the Chicago area, with a major innovation footprint in suburban Cook County. Kraft Heinz is headquartered in Chicago and operates production and distribution operations across Illinois. Conagra Brands is headquartered in Chicago, and ADM runs grain-processing operations tied to Decatur. Co-packers, bakeries, dairies, and beverage plants across Aurora, Joliet, and Rockford round out the cluster. These operations share a common environment: wash-down sanitation, food-acid and chemical exposure, and zero tolerance for line downtime.
Typical Illinois applications in this segment:
Recommended Autac products: SJOW and SOW UL types provide oil and water resistance for wash-down environments. Our Auta-Prene thermoset rubber jacket compound handles the cleaning chemistries and food-acid exposures common in bakery, dairy, and beverage operations. For dust-heavy grain and ingredient processing, shielded retractile configurations protect signal integrity on inspection equipment. Browse Coiled Cords for wash-down rated and shielded multi-conductor variants, and check the conductor color charts for plant-standard color coding.
Northern Illinois anchors a significant pharmaceutical manufacturing base. AbbVie is headquartered in North Chicago and operates active-pharmaceutical-ingredient (API) and finished-drug manufacturing on its North Chicago campus, with new API facilities under construction there. Abbott Laboratories runs diagnostics, nutrition, and device operations from Abbott Park and the northern suburbs. Baxter International manufactures IV solutions and medical products from Deerfield and Round Lake, and Horizon and Takeda add to the regional life-sciences footprint. Pharmaceutical manufacturing carries its own constraints: cleanroom controls, sterilization-compatible jacket compounds, and full material traceability for regulated documentation.
Typical Illinois applications in this segment:
Recommended Autac products: Our Auta-Prene thermoset rubber and TPR jacket compounds resist the cleaning and sterilization chemistries common in pharmaceutical and device manufacturing. For signal applications, 18 AWG and 16 AWG shielded retractile and curly configurations support millions of flex cycles. Browse Curly Cords for high-flex signal builds and Coiled Cords for shielded multi-conductor configurations. Lot traceability documentation is available for regulated submissions.
Illinois carries one of the densest machine-tool and metal-fabrication clusters in the Midwest. Rockford — long known as a fastener and machine-tool capital — is home to Ingersoll Machine Tools, which builds large metal-cutting, automated-fiber-placement, and additive machines for aerospace and industrial customers. A deep base of CNC machine shops, screw-machine houses, tool-and-die makers, and contract fabricators runs from Rockford through Aurora, Elgin, and greater Chicago, supplying the heavy-equipment and aerospace OEMs that anchor the state. These shops run machine tools, weld cells, and material-handling equipment that need durable, retracting power and control delivery to keep cords off the floor and out of moving work envelopes.
Typical Illinois applications in this segment:
Recommended Autac products: 14 AWG and 12 AWG retractile cords in TPR and Auta-Prene jackets are the workhorse for machine-tool and weld-cell drops, with custom retracted lengths from 18" to 48". For control and signal, 18 AWG and 16 AWG shielded curly configurations resist EMI in VFD-rich shop environments. Browse the Retractile Cords hub and Cord Sets for custom-terminated assemblies, and use Build Your Cord to spec gauge, length, jacket, and termination for your machine.
Every Autac product family ships from the same North Branford facility on the same lead times, whether your purchase order originates in Chicago, Peoria, Rockford, Moline, Decatur, Aurora, Joliet, or Naperville. Use these category hubs to browse stock catalog part numbers, application notes, and engineering specs:
Need a configuration that is not in the standard catalog? Illinois heavy-equipment engineers, aerospace development teams, and machine-tool builders regularly use our Build Your Cord tool to specify prototype cords for new equipment platforms. Specify conductor count (2 to 10), gauge (26 AWG to 10 AWG), voltage and current rating, retracted length (12" to 48" and beyond), extension ratio (1:3 to 1:7), jacket compound and color, optional shielding, and termination type — and we handle design, tooling, and manufacturing from a single Connecticut facility. Quote turnaround on a custom build is typically one to three business days; most custom orders ship in 4 to 6 weeks. There is no minimum order quantity, which makes it practical to validate a design with a 5- or 10-piece pilot before committing to a production run — a pattern that works especially well for Illinois's heavy-equipment, aerospace, and machine-tool engineering teams.
From North Branford to Chicago, Peoria, Rockford, Moline, East Moline, Decatur, Aurora, Joliet, Naperville, Springfield, and every Illinois destination in between, Autac ships standard ground freight in 2 to 3 business days. Stock catalog cords typically leave our Connecticut dock within one business day of order entry. Total door-to-door turnaround for Illinois stock orders runs 3 to 4 business days end-to-end. For time-critical projects — heavy-equipment line startups, aerospace test programs, food-line rebuilds during a changeover window — expedited freight can compress door-to-door turnaround to 1 to 2 business days. Custom-engineered cords ship as soon as production completes, typically 4 to 6 weeks from design sign-off.
Domestic-only freight means no customs paperwork, no broker fees, no cross-border delays, and no surprises at the receiving dock — a meaningful advantage over imported cordage routed through the Port of Chicago rail and container network. For high-volume Illinois accounts, we coordinate scheduled releases against blanket POs to keep production lines stocked without distributor lead-time stack-up. Smaller Illinois OEMs, machine shops, and contract manufacturers get the same direct-from-factory pricing as the largest accounts — pricing is based on configuration and volume, not customer-tier negotiations.
Setting up an Illinois account takes a single phone call or quote request. Our sales team handles credit-application paperwork, vendor-onboarding submissions, supplier-quality surveys (PPAP, FAI, ISO 9001, AS9100-adjacent documentation, FDA documentation support), W-9 or diversity-certification documentation, and material-content documentation requests as part of standard onboarding. Existing Autac customers expanding into Illinois operations can extend their account to additional ship-to addresses without re-qualifying. Contact our sales team at 800.243.3161 or quote@autacusa.com to begin onboarding.
Illinois OEM engineers and machine-tool teams regularly use Build Your Cord to spec prototype cords for new equipment platforms — any gauge, conductor count, length, jacket compound, color, and termination. No MOQ.
Request a quote on any catalog cord, or specify a custom build for your line. Stock orders ship from Connecticut within one business day — most Illinois destinations are 2 to 3 business days by ground, with expedited freight available for rush programs.