Critical success factors for electronic manufacturing services

Ongoing developments in the electronics industry continue to be driven by alternative or disruptive technologies that are discovered in pursuit of satisfying or exceeding Moore's Law. These trends are necessary to support the increased demand for ubiquitous computing, where data becomes the true commodity for business. Unfortunately, this ubiquity becomes difficult to control, and the "Internet of Things" creates several unwelcome challenges. One example includes the contradiction or conflict between consumer level products where volume drives factories and time-to-market dominates the design cycle. Representing the other end of the spectrum are technologies that are needed to support the enterprise server. This conflict can easily manifest itself in packaging reliability shortcomings and will be a source of concern for future devices and subsystems. In parallel with this phenomenon we are seeing the increased need by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to depend heavily on suppliers for outsourced technologies. Of particular interest and in practice for many years now is the Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) industry. If we assume a perspective that is enterprise oriented, EMS suppliers are being faced with a delicate balance between high volume, cost competitive manufacturing and higher turn-key services where a joint development or deeper collaboration model with the client emerges. Additionally, the migration of software defined redundancy in servers is putting less dependence on traditional high reliability designs and manufacturing disciplines that have in the past guaranteed a quality product. With so much at stake, the traditional customer-supplier relationship must be elevated and a full understanding of supplier capability achieved. This leads to the need for a comprehensive best practices evaluation and comparison among leaders in the industry. Given the complexity of these new relationships, including the division of ownership across integrated product development models in use today, the EMS role will extend beyond traditional boundaries, and the selection of that supplier will become increasingly critical to the quality and success of any product. This paper will identify those best practices and design and process factors essential to the success of a modern EMS partner.