To sustain business growth, companies are rapidly adopting the business model of outsourcing the production of their product hardware to electronics manufacturing service (EMS) providers in order to conserve their own internal resources. However, companies today are having a hard time choosing an EMS provider.
Small and medium enterprises have a particularly difficult time selecting an EMS that can fit their company’s unique product needs and feel powerless when dealing with multinational, tier-1 EMS providers due to the barriers of minimum order quantity (MOQ), offshore lead times, and a rigid supply chain. Luckily, small onshore EMS providers can meet the needs of SMEs if they follow our three pillars.
Flexibility – A Core Competency
In recent years, the concept of agile customization (AC) has emerged with two key elements for manufacturing implementation: automated information technology (IT) and business process reengineering.
In a nutshell, an AC manufacturing approach starts from the new product introduction (NPI) stage by configuring fundamental manufacturing setups in an optimal way. With these in place, manufacturing engineers can configure the three infrastructures for AC manufacturing processes.
Learn more about AC Manufacturing>>
Virtual Factory – a Digitized Product-Service System
The emerging Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is predicted to be a sweeping change that will fundamentally reconfigure the manufacturing industry. Industry 4.0 is rapidly transforming the EMS industry, where the virtual world of information technology (IT), the physical world of machines, and the Internet have become one. Industry 4.0 is propelling proliferation of digitization for manufacturers to become smart factories in operations.
Learn more about Virtual Factories >>
Partial Outsourcing – Going Global through EMS
Different from tier-1 EMS providers who dominate overseas, small, local EMS providers strategically operate in a “partially outsourced” capacity in which different locations serve dedicated functions. For example, a small EMS provider could have local manufacturing and sales and services in key markets like North America and EMEA, while outsourcing R&D, product engineering, supply chain, and component and subsystem manufacturing to APAC. With its multinational operations already set up, a local EMS can easily help SME companies to springboard their products and services into the global market overnight.
Learn more about Partial Outsourcing >>
We can’t stress enough the importance of working with trusted EMS providers. In this fast-moving and increasingly digital world, the right EMS providers can not only help SMEs reach their manufacturing need, they’ll become advisors to their customers, capable of providing solutions to all their product needs, and truly help them meet their business goals.
For a more in-depth account of how to leverage small EMS to boost your product competitiveness,
download the full White Paper.
