When 'Scaling Up' Leads to 'Belly Up'

摘要

Psst! hey you! Yeah, you over there ... EMS guy. Don't turn around and ignore me just because I'm a shadow of what I used to be.... I wanna help. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, or maybe because we North American fabricators are truly just a shadow of what we were a few years ago, but whatever the reason maybe we can help you EMS guys avoid the mistake we fabricators made. Or said differently, maybe you EMS guys can learn a couple of things by paying attention to what happened to PCB fabrication back in the late '90s. For the past few months, and especially at a recent industry gathering, the air has been abuzz with rumors, headlines, announcements and pundits pointing out lower tier EMS companies either in merger talks or trying to position themselves to be acquired in order to gain critical mass and scale to the coveted Tier I world. With the talk has come plenty of dreaming and scheming by smaller EMS companies, as they go through the awkward mating game in search of the perfect (or at least lucrative) corporate match. As a fabricator it all seems too much like "deja vu all over again."