We are a leading global printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer, focusing
on quick-turn and volume production of technologically complex PCBs and electro-mechanical
solutions (E-M Solutions). We are the largest PCB manufacturer in North America
and one of the largest PCB manufacturers in the world, in each case based on
revenue, according to the 2016 rankings from N.T. Information LTD (NTI). We
focus on providing time-to-market and volume production of advanced technology
products and offer a one-stop manufacturing solution to our customers from engineering
support to prototype development through final mass production. This one-stop
manufacturing solution allows us to align technology development with the diverse
needs of our customers and to enable them to reduce the time required to develop
new products and bring them to market. We serve a diversified customer base
consisting of approximately 2,000 customers in various markets throughout the
world, including aerospace and defense, automotive components, smartphones and
touchscreen tablets, high-end computing, medical, industrial and instrumentation
related products as well as networking/communications infrastructure products.
Our customers include both original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and electronic
manufacturing services (EMS) providers.
We manage our worldwide operations based on two reportable segments: (1) PCB,
which consists of 13 domestic PCB fabrication plants, including a facility that
provides follow-on value-added services; eight PCB fabrication plants in China
and one in Canada, and (2) E-M Solutions, which consists of three custom electronic
assembly plants in China. Each segment operates predominantly in the same industries
with production facilities that produce customized products for our customers
and use similar means of product distribution.
Our goal is to be the leading global provider of time-critical, one-stop manufacturing
services for highly complex PCBs. Our core strategy includes the following elements:
Maintain our customer-driven culture and provide superior service to our customers
in our core markets of aerospace and defense, automotive, cellular phones, computing
and storage, medical/industrial/instrumentation, and networking/communications.
Our customer-oriented culture is designed to achieve extraordinary service,
competitive differentiation, and superior execution. Our customer-oriented strategies
include engaging in co-development of new products, capturing new technology
products for next generation equipment, and continuing investments to enhance
our broad offering of PCB technologies. We believe our ability to anticipate
and meet customers’ needs is critical to retaining existing customers
and attracting leading companies as new customers.
Drive operational efficiency and productivity. We are highly focused on improving
our operational execution to increase efficiency, productivity and yields. We
strongly believe in the benefits of sharing best practices across our extensive
manufacturing footprint and rely on stringent goals for throughput, quality
and customer satisfaction to measure our effectiveness. The fast paced nature
of our business requires a disciplined approach to manufacturing that is rooted
in continuous improvement.
Accelerate customer and end-market diversification through strategic mergers
and acquisitions. We have a history of executing successful acquisitions that
have been key to our growth and profitability. We continuously look for strategic
opportunities that could facilitate our efforts to further diversify into other
growing end markets including automotive and aerospace and defense. Our acquisition
of Viasystems has increased, and the announced pending acquisition of Anaren
will increase, our service and product offering for our broad customer base.
Additionally, our acquisition of Viasystems also provided for diversification
into the automotive end market, while our pending acquisition of Anaren will
deepen our engagement with existing leading customers in the aerospace and defense
end market, demonstrating the benefits of this strategy.
Accelerate our expansion into the automotive and other growing markets using
our advanced technology as a key point of differentiation. With rising requirements
for faster data transmission, shrinking features (i.e., lightweight and thin),
and lower power consumption, many PCB designs have migrated to more complex
HDI PCBs from conventional multi-layer PCB technologies. This trend began with
PCBs used in portable devices such as smartphones and touchscreen tablets but
has become an increasing trend in other end markets, such as automotive, networking/communications,
medical, and aerospace and defense. We are focused in particular on the automotive
opportunity where the combination of our strength in highly reliable conventional
and RF PCBs and our advanced technology PCB product capabilities allows us to
meet our automotive customers’ growing demand in such areas as infotainment,
radar systems, cameras for advanced driver assistance systems and electric vehicles.
As our customers consolidate their supply chain, our objective is to differentiate
ourselves as a strategic supplier with the technology breadth to meet most,
if not all, of our automotive customers’ PCB requirements.
Address customer needs in all stages of the product life cycle. By providing
a one-stop solution, we work to service our customers’ needs from the
earliest stages of product design and development through volume production.
We believe that by servicing our customers early in the development process,
we are able to demonstrate our capabilities and establish an incumbent position
early in the product development cycle, which translates into additional opportunities
as our customers move into volume production. We believe our expertise is enhanced
by our ability to deliver highly complex PCBs to customers in significantly
compressed lead times. This rapid delivery service enables OEMs to develop sophisticated
electronic products more quickly and reduce their time to market. We believe
we will be able to increase customer engagement with our pending acquisition
of Anaren’s proprietary and customizable RF solutions from the concept
stage through to volume, which typically results in higher customer engagement.
Delever strong financial performance and delever the balance sheet. We aspire
to deliver industry-leading financial performance. We expect to achieve this
by servicing our customers’ needs in higher-growth end markets in a cost-efficient
and effective manner. We believe that this strategy will allow us to generate
strong cash flows, which will enable us to reduce financial leverage over time
while at the same time providing us with the financial flexibility to continue
to invest in our business, including through opportunistic acquisitions.