Your Guide to Selecting the Right Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) Partner

August 27, 2024
Chanelle Dupre
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Choosing the right manufacturing partner is crucial for mitigating risks and protecting your financial viability. To help you with your journey in finding a suitable new or alternate outsourced EMS partner, this article provides a practical guide to help with your evaluation.

There is a good reason to invest in due diligence when selecting a manufacturing partner. Consider a case from the early 2000’s where a well-known brand faced a major setback due to faulty electronic control boards caused by inadequate testing and incompatible components. This was a costly mistake resulting in a product recall, significant reputational damage, and financial loss.

This case highlights the severity of the consequences when selecting the wrong EMS partner and the devastating impact it could have on small and mid-sized businesses who may struggle to recover.

Choosing the right manufacturing partner is crucial for mitigating risks and protecting your financial viability. To help you with your journey in finding a suitable new or alternate outsourced EMS partner, this article provides a practical guide to help with your evaluation.

Capabilities and Capacity

Your prospective EMS partner should have the right machinery and processes to support various volume ranges, product variations and updates. Ensuring they have the capability and capacity to grow with your needs will provide comfort and peace of mind that you won’t outgrow them quickly. Their ability to accommodate your evolving needs, such as upgrades, next-generation variations, and fluctuating market demands, will cultivate a long-lasting partnership.

Questions to Ask:

  • Can they quickly expand and contract, and what are the cost implications?
  • What is their strategy in meeting the fluctuations in volume, variation and upgrades while containing costs?
  • How do they handle changes to project plans?
  • What level of expertise do they have in your product line or industry?
  • How broad is their expertise to support future expansion?
  • Do they have the core competencies to satisfy current and future product vision?

Manufacturing Location

Despite the growing movement towards reshoring, many OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) continue to prioritize cost-efficiency and remain open to offshoring their manufacturing services. If your company plans to eventually transition from offshoring to reshoring or nearshoring, find a partner with a global network of factories that can offer flexibility in manufacturing locations and costs.

Questions to Ask:

  • Where are the factories located?
  • How does the EMS partner manage supply chain issues?
  • How does the EMS partner handle logistics of delivering products to your key markets
  • Are they knowledgeable about imports, duties, taxes and other regulations?
  • Do they have negotiated rates to keep logistics costs under control?
  • What is the average timeline for offshored manufacturing vs nearshored?

Company History and Reputation

A company’s history and legacy are important considerations. Trust, transparency, ethics, accountability, and customer care are fundamental to a strong partnership. Your EMS partner should act in your best interest, especially in safeguarding your intellectual property, ensuring product continuity, and supporting the long-term viability of your business.

Questions to Ask:

  • How long have they been in business?
  • What is the average length of their customer relationships?
  • Does the EMS partner have a strong reputation?
  • How transparent are they on pricing and cost reduction strategies?
  • Are they proactive in communicating clearly, frequently, and transparently about potential issues and opportunities that would benefit the customer?

Customer Service and Account Management

Customer service and proactive account management are key to your success. Your EMS account manager should possess strong leadership skills to effectively coordinate key stakeholders including engineering, supply chain and manufacturing within both organizations. Your account manager’s responsibility is to help the customer achieve its project goal by ensuring fluid communication amongst parties, adherence to timelines and expectations and proactive risk mitigation.

Questions to Ask:

  • How have they worked with customers in the same or similar industry?
  • Are they proactive in communicating and supporting their customer needs throughout the project?
  • How often do they communicate with clients?
  • What project management method do they use?
  • How do they provide feasible options and solutions to issues?

Quality and Compliance

If you are in a regulated industry that requires compliance and adherence to specific standards or certifications, select an EMS partner who has experience with your industry’s specific requirements or one that has been carefully vetted and has the capability to deliver the requirements. The right EMS partner should have the appropriate processes and systems in place to achieve the standards you require for a market-ready product. They should have a comprehensive quality assurance program that ensures consistent product performance and a consistent approval process that avoids potential critical errors and issues that can arise.

Questions to Ask:

  • What quality systems, standards and methods are in place?
  • Does the factory have the necessary industry certifications?
  • What processes do they implement to ensure compliance with certifications and regulations?
  • What manufacturing practice do they employ?
  • Do they have the appropriate testing protocols in place?
  • How do they conduct inspections?

Supply Chain Management

With the right EMS partner, an OEM can benefit from cost advantages through strategic sourcing and optimized procurement processes. An ideal EMS partner should have an extensive network of reputable suppliers and logistics experts who can source compatible and cost-effective components while optimizing inventory to meet both timeline and demand requirements.

Questions to Ask:

  • What is your sourcing strategy?
  • Where do you source components, and from which suppliers?
  • Do you have reliable and reputable suppliers who can consistently meet our product needs?
  • Can you negotiate contracts to secure more competitive pricing?
  • How do you manage and optimize logistics costs?
  • What is your inventory management process?
  • How do you ensure product availability?

Value Added Services

An EMS partner that offers additional ancillary and complementary services can add significant value to your development and manufacturing projects. In addition to supply chain management, an ideal partner that offers value-added services such as product lifecycle management, warranty service, product repair, aftermarket support and product design capabilities, can help to streamline your entire manufacturing process

Questions to Ask:

  • What benefits can I expect from leveraging more of your services?
  • Are there cost efficiencies?
  • What areas can be simplified and streamlined?

Key Takeaways

With these questions, you can confidently begin the search for a reliable EMS partner who can help you realize your product vision. As business dynamics and consumer demands evolve, so too will your product vision.

The ideal EMS partner is agile, versatile, and possesses deep expertise, proven experience, and a strong reputation. They should be committed to acting in your best interest and offer a broad range of additional services. As highlighted by past experiences, while some brands may withstand critical manufacturing errors, many businesses cannot. Therefore, investing time to find the right partner is crucial.

Avnan offers extensive expertise and experience in product development and manufacturing.

Contact us to explore a potential new partnership.

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