MANKATO, MN -- Winland Electronics has completed a restructuring of its manufacturing and operations departments. The EMS company promoted Jeffrey Ocker to director of operations and Steve Trnka to director of manufacturing.

Ocker had been manager of manufacturing test engineering since 2006. Trnka has spent eight years at Winland as a program manager and strategic account manager.

The moves are intended to support aggressive EMS growth objectives and also better align the company to its 2008 and 2009 initiatives in program management, supply chain management, quality management and information systems, Winland said in a press release.

The restructuring follows the recent hiring of Warren Mitchell as executive supply chain leader.

NEENAH, WI -- Plexus Corp. plans to enter into a $150 million long-term debt facility and initiate a share repurchase program to repurchase up to $200 million of its common stock by the end of 2008. The moves are expected to be accrective to the company's second quarter earnings.

As part of the share repurchase program, Plexus has entered into accelerated share repurchase agreements with Morgan Stanley to repurchase $100 million of its common stock. The company will pay Morgan Stanley $100 million in exchange for approximately 2.2 million shares.

The rest of the repurchases -- up to $100 million -- will be made in the open market.

To pay for the buybacks, Plexus will use existing cash and new long-term debt of $150 million.

"This announcement reflects our ongoing commitment to our shareholders' total return," stated Dean Foate, President and chief executive. "We believe that repurchasing Plexus stock at current market prices is an attractive use of our capital with the potential to create significant shareholder value."

SMYRNA, GA -- Mentor Graphics will illustrate ways to cut design cycle time by 60% or more for board placing and routing in a free Webinar today at 2 pm EST. This presentation will describe some unique and innovative design-tool technologies that enable multiple designers, operating on a LAN or WAN network, to perform simultaneous placement and routing on the PCB. Users of this technology are reportedly experiencing more than a 60% reduction in layout times.

The Webinar will explain details of the technology and provide a short demonstration of multiple designer operations.

Register online here. For more information on this Webinar, click here.

MANILA -- EMS provider Integrated Microelectronics Inc. has plans to set up operations in Vietnam, a top executive said in an interview.

"It is always an open opportunity. Hopefully, this year," IMI senior managing director for manufacturing and custom business operations Emmanuel Barcelon reportedly said.

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