|
Solectron Corp. - Contract Manufacturing -
Category Directory
(408)
957-8500
777
Gibraltar Drive
Milpitas, CA 95035
www.solectron.com
Sales
$11
billion
Business Description
We
provide electronics supply chain services to original equipment
manufacturers (OEMs) around the world. These companies contract with us to
build their products or to obtain services related to product development,
manufacturing and post-production requirements. In most cases, we build and
service products that carry the brand names of our customers.
We serve several segments of the electronics products and technology
markets. Much of our business is related to the following products:
• Networking equipment such as routers and switches that move traffic across
the Internet;
• Telecommunications equipment;
• Computing equipment, including workstations, notebooks, desktops, servers,
storage systems and peripherals;
• Consumer products such as high-end cellular phones, set-top boxes,
personal/handheld communications devices and home game consoles;
• Automotive electronics systems and components, including audio and
navigation systems, system control modules, pressure sensors and switches,
and actuators and body electronics;
• Semiconductor and test equipment, including wafer fabrication equipment
controls, process automation equipment and home appliance electronics
controls;
• Medical products such as X-ray equipment, ultrasound fetal monitors, MRI
scanners, blood analyzers, ECG patient monitors, surgical robotic systems,
HPLCs, spectrometers, and laser surgery equipment; and
• Other electronics equipment and products.
Our customers include many of the world’s leading technology companies, such
as Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, Ericsson, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Apple,
Sony, Lucent Technologies and Hewlett-Packard.
We have a comprehensive range of services designed to meet customer supply
chain needs throughout the product life cycle. Our services include:
• Collaborative design support and design for manufacturability;
• New product introduction (NPI) engineering services;
• Supply chain design and sourcing;
• Prototyping;
• Product testing;
• Full product manufacturing, including printed circuit board assembly (PCBA)
and complete product systems assembly;
• Materials purchasing and supply base management;
• Product fulfillment services, including packaging, distribution and
installation;
• Product repair and warranty service; and
• End-consumer technical support and customer relationship management (CRM)
services.
We bring these services together to provide integrated solutions for
customers in electronics and technology markets. By utilizing our services,
customers gain cost, time and quality advantages that help improve their
competitiveness and enable them to focus on their core competencies of
sales, marketing, and research and development. More specifically, we
provide the following benefits to OEMs:
Faster Time-to-Market: Due to intense competitive pressures in the
electronics industry, shorter product life cycles require OEMs to reduce the
time needed to bring a product to market. OEMs can reduce time-to-market by
using our services, expertise and infrastructure. For example, OEMs can
partner with us during the stages of product design and product improvement
to expedite the transition into large volume production in our manufacturing
centers.
Lower Costs: OEMs that work with us can realize significantly lower costs as
a result of several factors: our ability to perform services in the most
value-adding, cost-effective locations around the world; our ability to pool
purchasing across our customer base; our ability to produce multiple
products within a given facility; and our flexibility to adapt our
operations to changing customer demand.
Better Asset Utilization: By using us to provide supply chain services, OEMs
can lower their investment in property, plant and equipment, as well as
systems and infrastructure. This lower investment can lead to better asset
utilization and higher return on assets for our OEM customers.
Focused Resource Allocation: As a result of market demands, many OEMs focus
their resources on activities that add the greatest value. By offering
comprehensive electronics supply chain services, we allow OEMs to focus on
their own core competencies, such as next-generation product development,
marketing and sales.
Leading Manufacturing and Service Technologies: Electronic products,
electronics manufacturing and service technologies have become increasingly
sophisticated and complex. This makes it difficult for OEMs to maintain the
necessary technological expertise to manufacture and repair products
internally. OEMs are motivated to work with us to gain access to our
expertise in interconnect, test, process, repair and other technologies,
such as lead-free manufacturing processes.
Cost-Effective Global Capabilities: We have facilities in Asia/Pacific,
Europe, North America and Latin America. Through our global presence, we
perform electronics supply chain services in locations to best address our
customers’ objectives, including cost containment; compliance with local
content regulations; proximity to end markets and end consumers; and the
elimination or reduction of expensive freight costs, tariffs and
time-consuming customs clearances.
We have benefited from increased worldwide market acceptance of, and
reliance upon, the outsourcing of electronics manufacturing and supply chain
services by electronics OEMs. Many OEMs in the electronics and other
industries outsource electronics manufacturing and related supply chain
services as part of their business strategies.
Industry Overview
OEMs in electronics and technology markets around the world are seeking to
increase their competitiveness by expanding their utilization of Electronic
Manufacturing Service (EMS) companies. Faced with shorter product life
cycles, more complex technology and market pressures to reduce costs and
product ramp time, OEMs are turning to EMS providers for a broader range of
electronics supply chain services. Outsourcing enables OEMs to concentrate
on their core competencies of product research and development, marketing
and sales.
Strategy
Our strategy is to offer our customers significant competitive advantages by
having them outsource to us their electronics supply chain service needs. We
accomplish this by offering value-added solutions based on our broad and
integrated range of services. As a result, we create compelling outsourcing
solutions that our customers can utilize in whole or in part.
Capitalize on Industry Growth Trends
Our business benefits from the greater OEM acceptance of, and reliance upon,
outsourced manufacturing and supply chain management services. To meet the
growing outsourcing needs of OEMs, we offer a wide range of services,
including collaborative design support, manufacturing and extensive
after-sales technical support, repair and CRM services.
Concentrate on Core and Emerging Markets
We are focused on extending our leadership and capabilities in our core
markets, which include the telecommunications, networking, and computing and
storage industries. The products we manufacture – and customers we serve –
in these markets represent a substantial portion of our revenues and reflect
our strong expertise in these areas. In addition, we participate in new
growth markets – such as the consumer, automotive, industrial, and medical
industries – where we can leverage our core strengths and believe we can
earn attractive returns.
Uncompromising Quality
Quality is central to our culture. We strive to use and continuously improve
our consistent processes, and we use several quality improvement and
measurement techniques to monitor our performance. We have received many
service and quality awards from internationally recognized quality
organizations and customers. We have received several awards recently,
including recognition from Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, NEC and Stratus
Technologies. In addition, substantially all of our manufacturing facilities
are certified under ISO international quality standards for design,
manufacturing and distribution management systems.
Efficiency and Cost Competitiveness
We believe that a fundamental requirement for sustained growth and
profitability in the EMS industry is to be an efficient and cost-competitive
manufacturer. To this end, we are focused on driving efficiency throughout
our organization, and have undertaken several initiatives to reduce costs
and increase our competitiveness. This includes an initiative to implement
Six Sigma Lean quality and manufacturing methods throughout the company,
beginning with our manufacturing operations. We believe the implementation
of these methods will assist us to eliminate non-value adding activities and
increase production efficiencies, resulting in a significant competitive
advantage.
Strategic Relationships
We seek to establish long-term strategic relationships with major and
emerging OEM leaders in diverse electronics and technology industry
segments. Our goal is to strengthen these relationships by delivering value
through integrated supply chains, from design to full product manufacturing
and distribution, to after-sales services such as product failure analysis
and repair.
Align Services to Improve Customer Supply Chains
We believe that, as technologies become more complex and as product life
cycles continue to shorten, OEMs will outsource more of their electronics
supply chain needs. As they do this, we believe they will look to a partner
that can provide these services on a seamless basis. As a result, we are
aligning our services to improve OEM supply chains and deliver lower costs,
higher quality, improved flexibility and faster time-to-market. We believe
that this will position us to be a primary provider to OEMs by delivering
integrated supply chains that add value to their businesses.
Advanced Technology Processes
We offer customers access to advanced technology processes, including
design, NPI and repair expertise. Our involvement with customers’ products
during the early design stages can help reduce cost and product
time-to-market, improve manufacturability and quality, and enables a fast
ramp to volume manufacturing. We will use our design capabilities to partner
with our customers, not compete with them. We have developed common tools
for industrial, electrical, mechanical and manufacturing applications
designed to shorten the design cycle and maintain cost effectiveness. Our
repair expertise also spans a wide range of products and advanced
technologies, from the system to the component level.
Diverse Geographic Operations
We locate our operations based on several considerations including where we
can generate manufacturing efficiencies and lower total costs, proximity to
customers, proximity to end-markets and end-users, and where we can
cost-effectively generate the greatest value. We have operations in the
Asia/Pacific region, the Americas and Europe. We believe our facilities in
these regions enable us to best meet our customers’ requirements.
Business Units
In late fiscal 2003, we began shifting from our business unit structure to a
functionally aligned organizational structure. Upon completion in early
fiscal 2004, customer-oriented functions will be organized by key activities
important to our customers and our overall business – Worldwide Design and
Engineering Services; Worldwide Operations (which includes logistics,
manufacturing, and post-manufacturing services); Worldwide Strategy and
Marketing; and Worldwide Sales and Account Management.
In addition to our organizational realignment initiated in late fiscal 2003,
we also initiated a portfolio review of our operations to identify those
that are not viewed as synergistic to our new strategy. During the fourth
quarter of fiscal 2003, we committed to a plan to divest some such
operations. Each business unit/operating segment discussed below includes
one such operation that is treated as a discontinued operation. Business
unit numerical data provided in the following discussion excludes these
operations, which are classified as discontinued operations in our
consolidated financial statements. However, discussions of the nature of
services provided by each business unit and in each geography include the
discontinued operations in order to maintain confidentiality during the
divestiture process related to these operations. It is also anticipated that
as plans to divest certain additional operations are implemented during
fiscal 2004, those operations will also qualify for classification as
discontinued operations.
Through August 31, 2003, we remained organized into four business units as
follows:
Global Operations
Global Operations provides customers with pre-manufacturing, manufacturing,
materials management and fulfillment services for printed circuit boards,
backplanes, system enclosures and complete electronic products. In fiscal
2003, Global Operations generated sales from continuing operations of $8.8
billion, or 79.7% of our total net sales.
The core function of Global Operations is to provide manufacturing services
to meet a wide range of customer needs, from large-volume/low-complexity
products to highly complex configure-to-order/build-to-order systems. These
manufacturing services include systems and product testing, PCBA,
sub-systems assembly, configure-to-order and build-to-order systems
assembly; and product installation, as well as related logistical support.
Our advanced manufacturing technology processes, failure analysis and test
capabilities can help our customers’ products reach the market faster and at
lower cost. Our materials management and fulfillment services seek to ensure
that the necessary parts and products are in the right place at the right
time to meet customer requirements. Materials management includes the
planning, purchasing, expediting, warehousing and preparation of components
and materials required to assemble products or portions of products. Through
product fulfillment, we manufacture, package and ship the products directly
to our customers or their customers.
Technology Solutions
Technology Solutions provides modular memory and embedded systems design and
related manufacturing services. Within Technology Solutions, SMART Modular
Technologies (SMART) and Force Computers design, manufacture, and market a
wide range of flash and DRAM memory modules, input/output (I/O), and
embedded computer products to OEM customers that incorporate those products
into their own systems. In fiscal 2003, Technology Solutions generated sales
from continuing operations of $1.3 billion, or 12.1% of our total net sales.
Through SMART, Technology Solutions offers memory and communications
products for OEMs that demand proven technology, quality and logistical
support. Through Force Computers, Technology Solutions offers a variety of
embedded computer boards and systems serving the telecom/datacom, military
and aerospace, medical, and industrial markets.
Global Services
Global Services groups our post-manufacturing services that provide
solutions for products from when they are put in service until they are
removed from the market. These services include: product failure analysis
and repair; upgrades; re-manufacturing and maintenance through factory and
fast-hub service centers located around the world; help-desk support through
customer call centers for end users; logistics and parts management
including management of strategic stocking locations; returns processing;
warehousing; engineering change management; and end-of-life manufacturing.
In fiscal 2003, Global Services generated sales from continuing operations
of $657.1 million, or 6.0% of our total net sales.
MicroSystems
MicroSystems was established as a business unit upon the completion of our
acquisition of C-MAC Industries in fiscal 2002. MicroSystems is involved in
every stage of the fabrication of hybrid microcircuits from design to
manufacturing. It uses state-of-the-art technologies to provide integrated
solutions for applications as varied as optical transceivers and pressure
sensors. Customer needs for high functionality and miniaturization are
supported by MicroSystems’ low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC)
operations. The ceramic-based technologies find broad application within the
automotive, military, aerospace and telecommunications markets. In fiscal
2003, MicroSystems generated sales from continuing operations of $238.2
million, or 2.2% of total net sales.
A second core technology is based on quartz crystals and frequency products.
MicroSystems offers a full range of products and technologies from low-end
oscillators to highly sophisticated TCXOs, OCXOs and SAWs. In addition,
state of the art ceramic-based and micro-machined silicon (MEM) sensors
satisfy a comprehensive range of applications in automotive, industrial and
aerospace applications.
Global Footprint
Our footprint – or facilities location – strategy is to locate specific
services and capabilities where we believe they can generate the greatest
value at the lowest total cost. These decisions are made based on low-cost
manufacturing options, proximity to our customers and prospective customers,
proximity to end markets and end users, and the location of specific
resources needed to deliver value.
We have shifted our manufacturing capacity to lower-cost locations over the
past few years – Mexico, Eastern Europe and, particularly, Asia. This
reflects our belief that OEM customers will be driven by the cost advantages
associated with these locations, among other factors, in the coming years.
As of August 31, 2003, approximately 70% of our manufacturing capacity in
terms of headcount and equipment, and 50% of our manufacturing capacity in
terms of square footage, were in these low-cost regions.
We locate our other services based on how best to add value and to gain
access to pools of people with the skills and experience we need to create
solutions and deliver world-class services. For example, we have major
design and product launch centers in California and Western Europe. This
enables us to draw from a highly skilled labor pool, and it gives us close
proximity and immediate access to interact with customers’ at critical
phases of the new product life cycle.
For our after-sales services, we operate repair and warranty centers based
on proximity to transportation infrastructure and proximity to end users. We
also operate customer contact centers in various locations that provide
qualified workers skilled at handling end-user inquiries.
Our ability to serve our customers effectively also depends upon our
materials management and logistic capabilities. Our locations are served by
a materials organization consisting of multiple groups across multiple
locations, and backed by information technology. The materials group is
responsible for ordering, tracking and ensuring that the correct parts are
delivered to the correct locations on a just-in-time basis to meet our
customers needs.
Americas
Our North American facilities are increasingly focused on higher value
activities, such as a variety of design services, technology development,
NPI, after-sales services, and manufacturing low-volume, highly complex
products. Our facilities in Latin America provide supply-chain services that
support the North and Latin American markets. The Latin American region’s
proximity to North America is useful for production where low-cost and
time-to-market, and/or geographical diversity are particular concerns for
OEMs.
Global Operations operates facilities that provide electronics design,
manufacturing and fulfillment services in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and
Brazil. Technology Solutions operates facilities in the U.S., Canada, Puerto
Rico and Mexico that provide design and manufacturing services for
technology building block products, such as memory modules and embedded
systems. Global Services provides electronics product repair and related
technical support through service and call centers in the U.S., Canada and
Mexico. MicroSystems operates facilities in the U.S. and Canada for the
design and production of advanced electronic components, subsystems and
systems.
Since fiscal 2001, we have reduced our overall manufacturing and call center
presence in North America as a result of our restructuring activities and
our strategic shift of manufacturing capacity toward lower-cost regions.
Asia/Pacific
This region is a significant end-market for our customers, and our
facilities in Asia/Pacific are located to take advantage of the region’s
well-developed supply base, transportation and logistics infrastructure,
educated workforce, and lower cost.
Global Operations provides low-cost, mid- to high-volume electronics
manufacturing and fulfillment at centers in China, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
In addition, the unit operates facilities in Japan, Singapore and Taiwan to
provide design, high-complexity electronics manufacturing and fulfillment.
Technology Solutions operates a center for the development of technology
building block products in India, and a manufacturing facility in Malaysia.
Global Services operates electronics repair and technical support centers in
Australia, China, Japan and Singapore. MicroSystems operates facilities in
China and India for the design and production of advanced electronic
components, subsystems and systems.
Europe
Our locations in Western Europe are focused on providing high value
services, such as electronics design; NPI; high-complexity, low-volume
manufacturing; and repair. Our Eastern European locations provide low-cost,
high-volume electronics manufacturing services. Driven by our strategy and
the general economic downturn, we have streamlined our operations in Western
Europe through our restructuring actions.
Global Operations provides electronics design, manufacturing and fulfillment
services in France, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Sweden, Turkey and the United
Kingdom. Technology Solutions operates a center for the development of
technology building block products in the United Kingdom and manufacturing
facilities in Germany and Scotland. Global Services provides electronic
repair and technical support services at facilities in Belgium, France,
Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. MicroSystems operates
facilities in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom for the design and
production of advanced electronic components, subsystems and systems.
Contract Manufacturers in the Directory
Benchmark Electronics
Celestica
Flextronics
Jabil Circuit
Sanmina-SCI Corp.
Solectron
|
|
