Circuits Assembly - December 2008 - (Page 20) Cover Story The Plexus Rx For its operational excellence and financial performance, Plexus is our first EMS Company of the Year. By Mike Buetow manufacturing technology and quality Steve di Loreto says. “From uick: Name the best-performing publicly held EMS comwomb to tomb, plus after-market services and end-of-life. There pany. Jabil? Not anymore. Benchmark. Wrong again. Flexare a lot of aspects to it.” tronics? Not even close. Overseeing the vast terrain, customer manager (CMVP) runs That would be Plexus. teams made of not just program managers but supply chain manThe 28-year-old EMS company has shown gross margins of agers and scheduling and production engineers, all of whom may 10.9% over the past three years and a compound annual growth directly interface with a customer. This alignment pushes execurate of 14.4%. This despite having what in some circles would tion to the site level, Plexus believes. The CMVPs act as farmers, be considered excessive overhead: too many engineers and a footprint heavy on North American operations. Yet, in this era, where it seems the only solution is a “China solution,” Plexus stands as one of the few billion-dollar EMS players that can afford such a setup. One reason is the company’s heavy drive to sell end-to-end services. “We focus on broad service offerings and points of engagement (with customers),” explains Mike Buseman, senior vice president of global manufacturing Figure 1a. Plexus Building 5 once had a traditional setup. operations. Engagement starts upfront (to say the company emphasizes design would be an understatement: Plexus’ Technology Group has some 350 design and test engineers) and continues through procurement, supply chain management, assembly, test and box build, with a hard push ongoing in the backend and chassis build, followed with direct ship to OEM customers and follow-on field services. “It’s more complex than people appreciate,” vice president of Figure 1b. Today, the site emphasizes workcells and modularity. 20 Circuits Assembly DECEMBER 2008 circuitsassembly.com Q http://www.circuitsassembly.com
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