The UK, a nation of great innovation, which has stood firm through the course of time.

Leading UK based Electronics Manufacturing Service Provider (EMS), Dynamic EMS, just celebrated its 65th anniversary, a testament to how embedded the electronics industry is in the UK’s history.
 
In this article, John Dignan, MD, and Owner of Dynamic EMS, addresses a question he is often asked by his American manufacturing partners, the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) before they commence their journey of product fulfilment and supply chain execution.
 
Q:  Why would a North American based OEM partner with a European EMS company?
 
“When I am asked this question, firstly I ask where the end market is located.  If the end market is European, then there are several reasons, primarily to simplify the supply chain, as to why you would want to be and should be, close-to your customer.
 
Closeness brings many benefits, but the main advantage is speed.
 
Doing business in the same time-zone, culture, and language injects speed into the entire production lifecycle process, from design to development, through to distribution.
 
Being a gateway to locally realised product introduction injects the development cycle with speed, as the parties involved are able to frequently meet face-to-face.  This ensures the product is designed for manufacture (DFM), which means it will go through the production process quicker.
 
Locality simply makes doing business easier.  If you are producing a product that is going to be disruptive in the market that it enters into, and/or where speed to market matters, then you obviously want as short a supply chain as possible.
 
A shorter supply chain also reduces the likelihood of risk.  As nations, we Europeans tend to be conservative about risk, hence operational contingency plans are put in place in order to avoid it.  Over the past decade, we have witnessed; ash cloud disruption, earthquakes, tsunami, political unrest, floods and economic crisis resulting in many historic and iconic institutes filing for bankruptcy.
 
These examples of supply chain fragility have driven the need for supply chain stability and a locally realised production.
 
Many of our new North American based OEM customers have, at some point over the past few years, fallen victim to supply chain disturbance, and when you are in an industry where speed to market, time in market and period in profit matters, any disruption can offset yield.  As a result, our North American customers felt vulnerable, which is why they looked for a solution that offered traceability back to batch.  This is very important for the aerospace, defence, military and medical customers who require complete supply chain transparency.
 
Ensuring that your EMS partner is certified will reduce your risk, as will; reducing your touchpoints.  The benefits that local product realisation bring are, that you can maintain or achieve a competitive advantage by securing your supply chain and ensure that you have the nimblest and most responsive supply chain for security, whilst preserving your intellectual property (IP).
 
Secondly, I address the experience. We are in our 65th year, which is typical of the electronics industry in Europe.  If you look at the UK, and Scotland in particular, it was only twenty years ago when the area in which Dynamic EMS is based was known as Silicon Glen.  Silicon Glen was home to household names such as; National Semiconductor, IBM, Motorola, Solectron, Compaq, Honeywell, Cisco, OKI, Agilent etc. While these companies may have transitioned out of the UK, the experience and know-how still exists.  These companies offered the very best training and development, that companies like Dynamic EMS now benefit from.

Silicon Glen 2001
 
The third and final benefit that I communicate is the fact that culturally, European EMS companies are looking to build a sustainable business model.   As we have evolved over the past 65 years, we have moved away from a historical transactional build-for-print business model, to one of accountability and patience.   We want to develop long-term relationships, protect one another and work towards mutual success through brand reputation and recognition.

With American companies on a shopping spree to buy into Euro Tech, the question must be asked, ‘why has the tide has turned’, when once their relations were exciting, why a foothold in Europe is once more attractive.  In my humble opinion, it’s due to the aforementioned reasons, as competitive advantage is achieved when you keep your customers close, and your competitors even closer.  So, we are delighted to welcome our new neighbours, and new business from overseas, and we are here to make it easy.

If you need to qualify this, just look around your boardroom table, look at your community, you are never far from an expat, these folks are a testament to the experience and expertise that we hold in Europe today.”
 
About Dynamic EMS
 
At Dynamic EMS, we understand that no two-electronic equipment manufacturing customers are the same.  Their products, their supply chains, and their markets all differ, which is why Dynamic EMS offer a tailor-made, customised electronics manufacturing services, to customers with complex, highly-diversified business.
 
From design to distribution, we enable our customers to be more competitive by bringing innovative solutions to market faster with a commitment to quality in everything we do.  Dynamic EMS – Your Product Solutions Architect.

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