Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Electronic Manufacturing Services: A New Dimension in Outsourcing Industry

Source: Mbtmag.com

The electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry has begun to equip itself to move beyond being a mere outsourced entity of the semiconductor industry. The semiconductor original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have consistently focused on cost savings, reduced time-to-market, reduced time-to-volume, quality and flexibility in their process of advanced technology evolution. In this manner, EMS providers play a critical role of supporting the semiconductor OEMs in their product development process to perform effectively in all of these aspects through its services and strategic business solutions. Given the changing market scenarios, especially in the consumer electronics sector, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) increasingly depend on electronics manufacturing service (EMS) providers to deliver high-quality products to their customers at the right time and volume.

While EMS providers have created strong footprints in the consumer electronics, communication and automotive industries, they will gradually penetrate into markets such as medical, industrial, retail stores as well as aerospace and defense by proving their capabilities and creating differentiation. Over the years, EMS providers have specialized in enabling the establishment of manufacturing processes in a most efficient way by supporting technology developers and OEMs to reap the fruits of all their development efforts effectively.

This briefing will benefit electronic contract manufacturers, semiconductor OEMs, original design manufacturers (ODMs), integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) and end-users/application developers, who wish to track the trends in the industry and extend their capabilities.

Highlights of the briefing will include emerging trends in the EMS industry. It highlights the trends in the EMS industry from capabilities to market segment, and also from a geographical perspective, examining the factors that influence the growth and market potential of the EMS industry.

"EMS providers greatly depend on OEMs for outsourcing and the increasing competition in the EMS market is driving the EMS providers to provide distinctive value-added services and portray global competence in terms of being able to adapt to dynamic market characteristics," notesFrost & SullivanAnalyst Kasthuri Jagadeesan.

"EMS providers should also focus on understanding the needs of the customers and the business models of their customers or OEMs in order to achieve profit margins, market share and successful end-products, and when they move towards higher levels of integration, they should offer flexibility in their solutions," addsFrost & Sullivananalyst Krishnakumar Srinivasan.