Yenom/ Pronology in EMS      1. Definition of EMS The world is changed rapidly. Most of the companies can’t handle all of the processes from product definition, product developing, manufacturing, marketing promotion, sales activities, up to after sale services. Therefore, the long chains are diversified to several different business types. EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) is a portion of the whole supply chain. The purpose of EMS is to collect some similar processes and build in a plant. Its advantage is to reduce the manufacturing cost and let the turnover of material, space resource (Facilities and Human Resources) move faster.    2. Category of EMS At the beginning of EMS industry, there were only big volume EMS factory in the world to build the consumer products. All other small volume company will setup a small factory to build the products for niche market. As soon as the manufacturing quality level requirement rise up, more talent small volume high mix manufacturers established. Therefore, there are some different categories of EMS companies as below. Specialized field EMS company. Low volume/ High mix manufacturing Subcontractor for big EMS company Partial process subcontractor     3. Detail description of different categories Specialized field EMS company Normally, this kind of companies are big EMS manufacturers and build the consumer products as Desktop, Notebook, Cell phone, LCD monitor, LCD TV, Digital Camera, Wi-Fi relative products. Low volume/ High mix manufacturing There are some small to middle size companies in this category. The advantage of this kind of companies is better flexibilities for production planning, production line change, material management and policy adjustment. The products in this category are quite various, such as Industrial PC/ controller, POS system, Data terminal, Web Pad, Digital Signage, Medical device, … etc., Subcontractor for big EMS company All of the manufacturers have capacity problems. At the peak season, capacity is always insufficient. At the low season, capacity is surplus. To balance the turnover of production line, most of the big EMS companies subcontract out about 30% requirement. Then, they can always optimize their production lines. Therefore, there are many subcontractors to build the products for big EMS companies. Some do the whole process production and some do only partial process. Partial process subcontractor Some subcontractors focus more on particular processes, such as SMT process, DIP process, Chassis assembly or Packing process. Many people want to be a small boss rather than a talent employee in Taiwan or China. Therefore, they will choose some special portions to be the boss. Then, grow up to expand the size and scale of the company.        4. Introduce some of the EMS factories Specialized field EMS companies Foxconn: The largest EMS plant in the world. This company divides their business to                 several units. Each unit became an independent operation center. The biggest                 unit is the production base for Apple Inc. Cellular phone, PC main board,                 Notebook, Network product… etc., Quanta:   The largest EMS manufacturer of Notebook in the world. This is a typical                 specialized EMS manufacturer. Low volume/ High mix manufacturing OSE:      This is middle to low volume and high mix manufacturer, named as public                second tier contract manufacturer. Focus on IC packaging, testing and IT field                product manufacturing. OSE is same as Yenom that builds the products by high                mix structure, not in a certain field.    Yenom:  We are in this category. As mentioned in item #3, the advantage of this  kind of                company is flexible and initiate total solution manufacturing.  They have the                benefit of large EMS companies, but smaller capacity. About the same size as                Subcontractor for big EMS company, they can service more customers by                strong logistics team. Subcontractor for big EMS company There are several big subcontractors in Taiwan. They are only building the products for big EMS as Foxconn, Quanta, Compal, Wistron … etc. The capacity and size of some companies are not too small. Because quantities placed from large EMS are big, the business is more stable than manufactures of low volume & high mix that many Taiwanese & Chinese manufacturers are in this field. But, they have some risks to shrink rapidly during depression stage.    Partial process subcontractor This is a special industrial supply chain in Taiwan & China. To divide the product manufacturing process to several parts. Each company does some portions of the process and chain together to complete the finished goods. This kind of companies are normally localized and small. The customer should have own factory to do the process and semi- products audit lot by lot. It’s not a choice for international business.       5. Conclusion EMS is a must business type in the current fast changed environment. All of the Companies should focus their business in a certain marketing segment. Then, they can adjust their strategies faster and more accurate to face the rapid progress world. Hopefully, above descriptions are details enough to show what is EMS. We will do more detailed introduction about Yenom in EMS next time. Below is a table in 2007 to show top ranks of EMS for your reference. Rank Company Name 1 Hon Hai Precision ( Foxconn) (Taiwan)   2 Flextronics (Singapore)  3 Asustek (Taiwan)   4 Quanta Computer (Taiwan)      5 Solectron (Milpitas, CA)  6 Sanmina-SCI (San Jose, CA) 7 Jabil (St. Petersburg, FL) 8 Celestica (Canada)  9 Inventec (Taiwan) 10 Wistron (Taiwan)