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How often does a company with no electronics contracting experience - heck, no electronics manufacturing experience - open a plant and within three months land as customers some of the largest telecom companies in the world?

I wouldn't be surprised if Zhejiang 8Telecom (8telecom.cn) was the first to hold those bragging rights. I visited the company's sparkling new factory in Hangzhou, China (about two hours outside of Shanghai) in early April. I came away with the remarkable story of a forward-looking company that went from nothing to an EMS player to watch in a relative heartbeat.

Its origins are anything but electronics. The company was launched in June 1997 as a designer and builder of telecom towers and synthetic pipe for running buried cables. Yet in roughly six months the company has opened an EMS division, outfitted a factory and hooked some of China's top names in telecom: Huawei Technologies, China Telecom, China United Telecommunications and China Mobile.

A veteran of Motorola and Pemstar, factory manager Wei (Johnny) Liu is one of six engineers and two managers at the company with an assembly background. Last fall, they were charged with procuring and installing three SMT lines. On deadline, they pulled it off. The factory was outfitted in December and pilot production began in January.

The three lines include Universal Instruments GSM pick-and-place machines, Speedline UltraPrint 2000 HiE printers, ERSA soldering equipment (HOTFLOW for reflow and EWS 500 for wave) and one YesTech YTX-3000 x-ray. They use Multicore solder for mobile phones and Alpha Metals for set-top boxes. AOI and ERP systems are still under evaluation. There is no Chinese-made automated equipment in the factory: According to Liu, it's not sufficiently stable to meet the 98% yields required by 8Telecom's customers.

Equipment evaluation centered on Cpk, reliability and throughput, using industry standard benchmarks. When choosing vendors, the emphasis was on flexibility and support, says Liu. The designs call for components ranging from 0102s to 55 mm², and low maintenance and downtime were musts.

Not surprisingly, 8Telecom relied heavily on its suppliers to pull everything together.

"We didn't know the type of equipment we would build," said Liu. "Today it's mobile phones. Later it might be base stations. We needed flexibility." Pointing to the lines, he says, "Universal was the best for this. The DPO software works very well; it balances the whole line." He added that Universal's lab and service center in nearby Suzhou was instrumental in establishing a high level of comfort.

The 8Telecom factory opened in January and is running two shifts, seven days a week. The EMS group employs 160 workers, and plan to grow to 250 (with 30 engineers) by year-end. It averaged eight inventory turns for the first quarter. The firm was undergoing an ISO audit during my visit.

8Telecom has hit the ground running, and in most respects seems like an old hand at building electronics. Customers, vice president Qiao Mu says, are interested in the equipment platform, process control, the management team's EMS experience, the capability to build custom product and - what else? - cost. The top defect is solder joint quality. And the major challenge they see is the strong management sported by other major EMS firms. "It's something a newcomer has to overcome," Liu adds.

8Telecom counters with its own "skilled management team, and a very low-cost solution." Says Mu: "I think MNCs are above the cost expectation that the customer requires."

None of this answers the big question: How does an EMS company go from nonexistent to winning programs from some of the largest and most demanding customers in the world? Answer: 8Telecom leveraged its relationships with several major OEMs by adding EMS work to other services already being provided.

The goals are ambitious: 200 RMB ($25 million) this year in EMS revenues and 1 billion RMB ($125 million) within three years. A new plant is already under construction, and the firm plans to add three lines in 2006 and four in 2007, giving it 10 in all. Given the customer list, the odds appear in their favor.

Finally, why "8Telecom?" Eight is a lucky number to the Chinese, meaning sudden fortune and prosperity. Sounds about right.