competeing with CEI of Singaphore?

Low volume - high mix in Singapore? Unless something has changed in the last couple of years this customer will be back shortly with a mess.

I may be wrong on this and will accept correction from anybody but from my experience with them they will be buying counterfeit / non approved components in turnkey solutions that will take the customer a long time to resolve and many trips to them will be required. There also can be no "deviation" from the norm as this will stop them dead in their tracks.

My thoughts Russ

reply »

PR,

Your customer will be lucky if CEI even bids the low volume work. They are only interested in high volume production runs. Also look out for counterfit parts, they are using them by the handfuls....China is no beter! If you have alot too build and need it cheap CEI is the way to go.....I guess. I would still like for the USA to have a chance to bid. Regrads.

reply »

PR

What you're up against is the usual bottom line manufacturing "cost" I have no direct experience with CEI, but I have experience competing with low labor cost. I have to disagree with Russ that Singapore cant handle high mix low volume because today they have the technology and infrastructure to handle any challenges in manufacturing. With their high living standards and ultramodern industry they gained the reputation being the technology center for south/east Asia (see link below) Companies like CEI function as intermediate between customer and low labor cost countries. The work environment in Singapore is very similar to the work environment in the USA (they may need a little more air-conditioning). It�s a very easy step for a US customer to move the assembly to a Singapore facility even if the manufacturing cost is the same or initially even higher.

The ultimate goal is manufacturing in a low labor cost country. Companies like CEI do the pilot runs and provide the necessary feed back to the customer on changes to be made in design and/or process in order to safely move the manufacturing to their facilities in neighboring low-labor cost countries (Malaysia, china, India and Vietnam).

What can be done to create economical advantages over here is review the product flow and eliminate process steps with current existing technology. Process steps that can safely be eliminated are cleaning, visual inspection, post wave assembly etc. (process steps not adding value or improve quality and reliability). It's also important as a CM to take a leading role in determining the most economical manufacturing flow and share the savings with the customer.

Just to give you an example about the typical CM mentality. When a CM is introduced to new products for assembly eliminating most if not all of the problems, you get the immediate response this is great but not approved by our customer and the comment "we don�t have the time to get it through the process to get it approved". Maybe the engineers here should learn to translate the technicalities into dollars and cents you might get immediate attention from your customer.

Here's an interesting article http://www.circuitsassembly.com/pdf/0406/0406ems_mucha.pdf

If you want to discuss in more detail send me an email or give me a call.

Pat 214-350-5565

reply »