Bert Lee Email & Phone Number

The EMS industry took off after the late 1970s when Solectron was established. At the time, most electronics manufacturing for large-scale product runs was handled by in-house assembly. These new companies offered flexibility and eased human resources issues for smaller companies doing limited runs. The business model for the EMS industry is to specialize.

The development of Surface Mount Technology (SMT) on printed circuit boards (PCB) allowed for the rapid assembly of electronics. The early 1990s saw OEM's rapidly installing SMT lines. EMS players like SCI and Avex struggled to exist as OEMs would pull contract or change vendors constantly. By the mid-1990s the advantages of the EMS concept became.

Another distinction is drawn between EMS that specialize in High Mix Low Volume (HMLV) and High Volume Low Mix (HVLM). Mix refers generally to the complexity or different models of the pcb assembly. Volume refers the number of units built, with products like consumer electronics on the high end and prototype, medical electronics or machinery on the low.

Today the market is dominated by a handful of companies[4] such as Hon Hai Precision Industries (Foxconn), Flextronics, Celestica, Sanmina-SCI, Jabil, Elcoteq, Onyx EMS, Benchmark Electronics, Plexus, Kimball Electronics Group, Key Tronic Corp, Asteelflash and a few dozen others, several thousand smaller companies continue to occupy EMS niches.