EMSNOW

The EMSNOW-in4ma team describes their tour of the impressive Zollner facility in Satu Mare, Romania. The two have visited several other Zollner facilities in previous Tours and offered some insights into how this family-owned EMS keeps customer-centric policies at the forefront of their overall global strategy. The discussion includes the capabilities, scope and layout of this facility, and Zollne...

EMSNOW talks with INDIC EMS’ Managing Director Vivek Khanna about his company’s aggressive plans for global growth. Vivek will be presenting at Electronica’s PCB Forum on the topic of India’s emergence as a global hardware manufacturing hub.

The EMSNOW-in4ma On Tour team attends a global corporate strategy meeting at Connect Group where Dieter also made a presentation. This podcast includes a brief history of this unique EMS company; then Dieter drills down into their capabilities, market segments served, global facilities footprint and future expansion plans. They discuss the challenges of developing an automation strategy for high m...

This episode of EMSNOW On Tour with in4ma, recorded in a hotel in Timișoara, Romania, begins with some background on the electronics industry in Romania and key historical events from Timișoara. The tour visited Kimball Electronics Romania and Systronics/Cicor in an area that includes a number of other EMS. The discussion covers the reasons and advantages of this region; the sectors represented, l...

After three flights and a three-hour drive, Eric and Dieter arrive in Romania for visits to two very different EMS facilities: Pantel Elektronik, a family-owned company based in Germany and Flex Romania. The two discuss their impressions, including thoughts on the stable workforce in Romania, how the logistics, software development and customer service works at Pantel Electronik, the astonishing s...

Reporting from the airport on their way to Romania, Eric and Dieter discuss their visit with Teltonika EMS's facility in Vilnius, Lithuania. Teltonika began this EMS division in 2019 and has been rapidly expanding manufacturing capacity to both support its telematics and IoT operations and offer high volume, highly automated manufacturing to the industry. Their highly automated PCB manufactur...

The 2024 edition of EMSNOW-in4ma On Tour will focus on Eastern European EMS. Eric and Dieter are in Lithuania where they discuss Dieter's earlier visit to EMS companies in Estonia: Tepcomp Oü, Ouman Estonia Oü, and InCap Estonia Oü. They then preview the week's travel plans to meet with companies in Lithuania and Romania before traveling to Munich for electronica and one last EMS tour. ...

EMSNOW catches up with Michael ‘Mitch’ Mitchell, White Horse Laboratories’ new Director of Quality, a new role within this growth-focused global testing company. Mitch came to White Horse from the customer side, with a deep background in aerospace and aviation. He describes his experience during Covid doing lifetime buys of key components and then having verification challenges; his decision to ta...

David Schild of the PCBAA offers EMSNOW an update about the fast moving events impacting the PCB industry in the U.S. including the supply chain disruptions that are expected from the dockworkers’ strike, weather events, wars in Europe and the Mideast and so on. It’s not “if” there will be global disruptions, but “when”, David asserts, so it is even more critical to establish secure and resilient...

EMSNOW queries Zedric Ochoa, President and Jayson Alfonso, EVP of Omega GTI about the evolution of this unique distributor. The discussion covers the company’s footprint in Silicon Valley and SE Asia, the journey from independent distributor to having franchised lines, their customer profile which includes OEMs and ODMs as well as EMS, and their customer-driven growth into a wide range of services...

EMSNOW learns about dispensing solutions provider Axxon Mycronic from Jeff Leal, Director of Business Development and Strategy. The discussion starts with background about the history of Axxon, which was originally a Chinese company and was acquired by Mycronic in 2016. Now the plan is to bring these comprehensive dispensing solutions to the rest of the world, starting with the new subsidiary in G...

EMSNOW speaks with Rosemary Coates, Founder and Executive Director of the Reshoring Institute for an update from the front lines of this growing trend. Rosemary describes her background in supply chain in the electronics industry, and how she came to the decision to develop the tools and methodology to help companies evaluate their global manufacturing strategies. Drawing on her deep expertise, sh...

EMSNOW gets an update about EMS company Libra Industries from its CEO Andrew Williams. Andrew just passed his one year mark as CEO and is setting ambitious growth goals for the company. He explains the history of the current Libra Industries footprint, with its two EMS facilities in Cleveland and Dallas, its precision machining capabilities from the Gem City acquisition in Dayton and the acquisiti...

Oshri Cohen, CEO of AI-based software provider Cybord, explains to EMSNOW how this solution finds non-conforming material coming into the PCB manufacturing process. In the past year a lot has happened in this arena and Oshri outlines the trends: EMS companies have become much more open to adoption of this groundbreaking technology to prevent not only counterfeit components but any defects arising...

EMSNOW interviews Lou Hughes, the new CEO of Integrated Micro-Electronics, Inc. (IMI) about his background and insights into his new role at this unique global EMS. He explains how he will shepherd IMI into the next phase of its journey. He will be reviewing the manufacturing footprint and corporate structure, to increase efficiency and make sure each person in the company understands his/her role...

In the second part of EMSNOW’s interview with the new CEO of IMI Lou Hughes, the two go deeper into plans for the company’s future. The discussion covers IMI’s distinctive competitive edge as a mid-tier EMS competing with the big guys, his focus on automation, developing healthy relationships with customers based on ‘fairness’, his introduction of ‘challenger selling,’ and the long term benefits o...

EMSNOW discusses in4ma’s European EMS Mid-Year Survey Report with study author Dieter Weiss. Dieter’s methodology relies on what he calls ‘real numbers’ i.e. actual reported performance data rather than general forecasts or rumours, resulting in unshakeable benchmarking data for sound decision-making. Part One of this discussion focuses on the the dramatic slowdown this year in European EMS. They...

EMSNOW discusses in4ma’s European EMS Mid-Year Survey Report with study author Dieter Weiss. Part Two begins with an explanation from Dieter about the thinking behind his new metric, Revenue/SMT line. They then turn to Dieter’s forecast for what’s ahead for the industry, how EMS companies should be preparing now, and why OEMs should commit to financially healthy electronics manufacturing services...

EMSNOW learns about component distribution trends in India from Rakesh Kumar, Sales and Business Development Director for Win Source Electronics. Rakesh is based in that growing market for EMS. He describes how and where the growth is occurring, and where the products are going, including electric vehicles, other subsystems for automobiles, renewable energy, and smart phones among other markets. H...

Roberto Gatti, CEO of automated optical inspection company Delvitech SA, explains to EMSNOW how artificial intelligence is totally integrated into their solution, enabling their system to go beyond what is currently possible with AOI technology. The AI is not an add-on commodity but an integral part of the engineering. This approach reduces waste by preventing errors in real time and by inspecting...

EMSNOW caught up with Joel Scutchfield, General Manager of SMT Business Operations & Director of Sales, Koh Young America, Inc. to learn how Koh Young has responded to inspection requirements in the system-in-package and semiconductor manufacturing environment. He discusses the pace of trends like reshoring semiconductor, packaging, and substrate manufacturing activities to the Americas and ho...

Eric and Dieter discuss the last company visit to DBK EMS, an electronics company founded in 1946 to develop heating systems for post-war Germany; now the EMS division serves that end market and others in Europe. The managers they talked with asserted the belief that in order to be competitive in Germany, you must automate manufacturing and this was evident in the lines they saw. The two experts t...

Eric and Dieter unpack the invaluable data and insights presented at this year's successful in4ma EMS Forum in Ulm, Germany. This invitation-only event for EMS and PCB executives was mostly in German and covered the challenges of running a profitable business in these tumultuous times. The two discuss the overall business mood of the CEOs in attendance, the theme of the event, a summary of ea...

The tour spends another day in Germany with a visit to TQ Systems, the 3rd largest EMS in Germany. The discussion begins with Dieter's explanation of this family owned company's history and global strategy; the facility they visited was acquired in 2012. They discuss what they saw on their visit: a focus on both automation and workforce training.  Eric and Dieter share their thoughts abo...

The EMSNOW and in4ma team travels within Germany to visit with two unique EMS: Hekatron and Jopp Electronic are both OEMs that have launched divisions to enable them to offer  electronic manufacturing services to the industry. Hekatron EMS is a division of Swiss Securitas Group, a company that makes security and alarm systems. Jopp Electronics is primarily in automotive electronics. This episode&a...