Item 1. Business
Overview
We are an independent global provider of customized, integrated electronics manufacturing services, or EMS. We provide these comprehensive services primarily to original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, in the communications, enterprise computing and storage, multimedia, industrial and semiconductor capital equipment, defense and aerospace, medical, clean technology or "CleanTech" and automotive industries. The combination of our advanced technologies, extensive manufacturing expertise and economies of scale enables us to meet the specialized needs of our customers in these markets in a cost-effective manner. We were originally incorporated in Delaware in May 1989.
Our end-to-end services in combination with our global expertise in supply chain management enables us to manage our customers' products throughout their life cycles. These services include:
Our manufacturing services are vertically integrated, allowing us to manufacture key system components and subassemblies for our customers. By manufacturing key system components and subassemblies ourselves, we enhance continuity of supply and reduce costs for our customers. In addition, we are able to have greater control over the production of our customers' products. System components and subassemblies that we manufacture include high-end printed circuit boards, printed circuit board assemblies, backplanes and backplane assemblies, enclosures, cable assemblies, precision machining, optical components and modules, and memory modules.
We manufacture products in 18 countries on four continents. We seek to locate our facilities near our customers and our customers' end markets in major centers for the electronics industry or in lower cost locations. Many of our plants located near our customers and their end markets are focused primarily on final system assembly and test, while our plants located in lower cost areas engage primarily in high volume, less complex component and subsystem manufacturing and assembly.
We have become one of the largest global EMS providers by capitalizing on our competitive strengths including our:
Industry Overview
EMS companies are the principal beneficiaries of the increased use of outsourced manufacturing services by the
electronics and other industries. Outsourced manufacturing refers to an OEM's use of EMS companies, rather than internal manufacturing capabilities, to manufacture their products. Historically, EMS companies generally manufactured only components or partial assemblies. As the EMS industry has evolved, OEMs have increased their reliance on EMS companies for additional, more complex manufacturing services including design services. Some EMS companies now often manufacture and test complete systems and manage the entire supply chains of their customers. Industry leading EMS companies offer end-to-end services including product design and engineering, manufacturing, final system assembly and test, direct order fulfillment and logistics services, after-market product service and support, and global supply chain management.
We believe increased outsourced manufacturing by OEMs will continue because it allows OEMs to:
Reduce Operating Costs and Capital Investment. In the current economic environment, OEMs are under significant pressure to reduce manufacturing costs and capital expenditures. EMS companies can provide OEMs with flexible, cost-efficient manufacturing services through their manufacturing expertise and more significant economies of scale. In addition, as OEM products have become more technologically advanced, the manufacturing and system test processes have become increasingly automated and complex, requiring significant capital investments. EMS companies enable OEMs to access technologically advanced manufacturing and test equipment and facilities without additional capital expenditures.
Focus on Core Competencies. The electronics industry is highly competitive and subject to rapid technological change. As a result, OEMs increasingly are focusing their resources on activities and technologies in which they expect to add the greatest value. By offering comprehensive manufacturing services and supply chain management, EMS companies enable OEMs to focus on their core competencies, including next generation product design and development as well as marketing and sales.
Access Leading Design and Engineering Capabilities. The design and engineering of electronic products has become more complex and sophisticated and in an effort to become more competitive, OEMs are increasingly relying on EMS companies to provide product design and engineering support services. EMS companies' design and engineering services can provide OEMs with improvements in performance, cost and time required to bring products to market. EMS companies are providing more sophisticated design and engineering services to OEMs, including the design and engineering of complete products following an OEM's development of a product concept.
Improve Supply Chain Management and Purchasing Power. OEMs face challenges in planning, procuring and managing their inventories efficiently due to fluctuations in customer demand, product design changes, short product life cycles and component price fluctuations. EMS companies employ sophisticated production management systems to manage their procurement and manufacturing processes in an efficient and cost-effective manner so that, where possible, components arrive on a just-in-time, as-and-when needed basis. EMS companies are significant purchasers of electronic components and other raw materials and can capitalize on the economies of scale associated with their relationships with suppliers to negotiate price discounts, obtain components and other raw materials that are in short supply and return excess components. EMS companies' expertise in supply chain management and their relationships with suppliers across the supply chain enable them to help OEMs reduce their cost of goods sold and inventory exposure.
Access Global Manufacturing Services. OEMs seek to reduce their manufacturing costs by having EMS companies manufacture their products in the lowest cost locations that are appropriate for their products and end customers. OEMs also are increasingly requiring particular products to be manufactured simultaneously in multiple locations, often near end users, to bring products to market more quickly, reduce shipping and logistics costs and to meet local product content requirements. Global EMS companies are able to satisfy these requirements by capitalizing on their geographically dispersed manufacturing facilities, including those in lower cost regions.
Accelerate Time to Market. OEMs face increasingly short product life cycles due to increased competition and rapid technological changes. As a result, OEMs need to reduce the time required to bring their products to market. OEMs often can bring a product to market faster by using an EMS company's expertise in new product introduction including manufacturing design, engineering support and prototype production. OEMs often can more quickly achieve volume production of their products by capitalizing on an EMS company's manufacturing expertise, global presence and infrastructure.
Competitive Overview
We offer our OEM customers end-to-end services that span the entire product life cycle:
Competitive Strengths
We believe our competitive strengths differentiate us from our competitors and enable us to better serve the needs of OEMs. Our competitive strengths include:
End-to-End Services. We provide services throughout the world to support our customers' products during their entire life cycle, from product design and engineering, through manufacturing, to direct order fulfillment and after-market product service and support. We believe our end-to-end services are more comprehensive than the services offered by our competitors because of our focus on adding value before and after the actual manufacturing of our customers' products. Our end-to-end services enable us to provide our customers with a single source of supply for their EMS needs, reduce the time required to bring products to market, lower product costs and allow our customers to focus on those activities in which they expect to add the highest value. We believe that our end-to-end services allow us to develop closer relationships with our customers and more effectively compete for their future business.
Product Design and Engineering Resources. We provide product design and engineering services for new product designs, cost reductions and design for manufacturability (DFx) reviews. Our engineers work with our customers during the complete product life cycle. Our design centers provide hardware, software, Electronic Design Automation (ECAD), and verification, regulatory and testing services. We design high speed digital, analog, radio frequency, wired, wireless, optical and electro-mechanical products.
Our engineering engagement models include Joint Design Manufacturing (JDM), Contract Design Manufacturing (CDM) and consulting engineering for DFx, Value Engineering (cost reduction re-design), and design for environmental compliance with the European Union's Restrictions of Hazardous Substances, or RoHS, and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment or WEEE. We focus on industry segments that include Communications, Enterprise Computing and Storage, Medical, Multimedia, Defense & Aerospace, Industrial & Semiconductor Capital Equipment, CleanTech and Automotive. System solutions for these industry segments are supported through our vertically integrated component technologies, namely, printed circuit boards, backplanes, enclosures, cable assemblies, precision machining, memory modules and optical modules.
In these engagement models, our customers bring market knowledge and product requirements. We provide complete design engineering and new product introductions (NPI) services. For JDM products, typically the intellectual property is jointly owned by us and the customer and we realize manufacturing revenue associated with building and shipping the product. For CDM projects, customers own the intellectual property.
Vertically Integrated Manufacturing Services. We provide a range of vertically integrated manufacturing services. Key system components that we manufacture include complete printed circuit boards and printed circuit board assemblies, backplanes and backplane assemblies, enclosures, cable assemblies, precision machine components, optical modules and memory modules. By manufacturing these system components and subassemblies ourselves, we enhance continuity of supply and reduce costs for our customers. In addition, we are able to have greater control over the production of our customers' products and retain incremental profit opportunities for us. Examples of products that we manufacture using our full range of services include wireless base stations, network switches, routers and gateways, optical switches, enterprise-class servers and storage appliances, set-top boxes, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computer tomography (CT) scanners, and equipment used in the semiconductor chip manufacturing process, including equipment for photolithography, chemical mechanical polishing, physical vapor deposition, automated handling tools and robotics for wafer transfer.