The stellar growth rates encountered over the last decade by the emboldened EMS industry are expected to go flat in the mid term – simply because there is not much more large OEM capacity left to be outsourced. That was a key point by industry analyst Ralph Kenton who had assembled and themed the Productronica Forum panel „Outsourcing Electronics Assembly: Reaping Rewards in a Risky Business.“
Six speakers – Rodolfo Archbold of MSL, Ian McEvoy of Universal, Cornelius Scholten of Assembleon, Peter Drexel of Siemens Dematic, Ralph Kenton and Humphrey Porter of Flextronics Europe – they all tried their best to establish common ground between the EMS and OEM segments of the electronics industry. The result can be described as such: there is a continuing need for mid-tier and small EMS providers. The large EMS firms are becoming defocused in terms of their core competencies, where-as the OEMs continue to lose core competencies. The rush to low-cost manufacturing sites continues at a high pace – for example to China, Malaysia or Hungary and Romania.
The conclusion: now more than ever, EMS is the intermediator between high-cost and low-cost regions of the industrialized world. As such, it will have a strong role to play. There is no reason, said Peter Drexel, to change strategy and quality demands on EMS, even at the current market situation. Cor Scholten bets on the continuing trend to further optimize manufacturing organizations. „We expect that our customers require ever more total solu-tions.“ Ian McEvoy concurs, „EMS is not just assembly. It’s the total procurement chain, including indirect services, such as testing – all the issues that surround components.“ Humphrey Porter agrees and expands, „Product design is one of the fastest growing services for us. That’s normal in a sense. Our customers want us to be involved in design for manufacturing as well.“ (ws)
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