An EMS provider that doesn't build boards: taking "focus" to the extreme can mean giving up SMT assembly too.Ed.: The complete article can be seen at circuitsassembly.com/cms/content/view/5023. Narragansett Technologies lives the philosophy it espouses to its customers: Focus on core competencies A core competency is something that a firm can do well and that meets the following three conditions specified by Hamel and Prahalad (1990):
Today the Narragansett EMS division is focused on high-mix, low-volume manufacturing of digital imaging systems and subsystems. Applications and products include medical, biometrics The biological identification of a person. Examples are face, iris and retinal patterns, hand geometry and voice. Increasingly built into laptop computers, fingerprint readers have become popular as a secure method for identification. , defense, traffic control and professional imaging. A majority of the business is centered on diagnostic medical imaging subsystems products and its complex assembly and test requirements. Narragansett EMS's business model focuses on core competencies and outsourcing (1) Contracting with outside consultants, software houses or service bureaus to perform systems analysis, programming and datacenter operations. Contrast with insourcing. See netsourcing, ASP, SSP and facilities management. board-level manufacturing. The model developed as the division and its imaging business customers began to understand what a significant portion of the total system functionality Narragansett's products were providing. This led to the realization that the additional tasks performed at the customer's site were not adding significant value and would be better performed at Narragansett EMS's facility as the imaging products were assembled. The company's success building higher-level systems led to winning an increasing amount of work for system builds not based on its own imaging modules. This business model benefits customers since the logistics behind procurement The fancy word for "purchasing." The procurement department within an organization manages all the major purchases. and assembly of many specialty parts are placed in the hands of a specialist in that field. The advantages include: * As an EMS company, Narragansett is able to offer its customers the typical benefits associated with a traditional contractor: assembly services, product lifecycle Product lifecycle or product life cycle is the course of a product's sales and profits over time. The five stages of each product lifecycle are product development, introduction, growth, maturity and decline. management, supply chain management, manufacturing engineering Manufacturing engineering Engineering activities involved in the creation and operation of the technical and economic processes that convert raw materials, energy, and purchased items into components for sale to other manufacturers or into end products for and order fulfillment Order fulfillment (in BE also: order fulfilment) is in the most general sense the complete process from point of sales inquiry to delivery of a product to the customer. Sometimes Order fulfillment . * By focusing on the large (and growing) diagnostic medical imaging market, the company is able to offer more specialized spe·cial·ize v. spe·cial·ized, spe·cial·iz·ing, spe·cial·iz·es v.intr. 1. To pursue a special activity, occupation, or field of study. 2. testing associated with this field, such as image quality testing or x-ray imaging. In almost every case, this testing is too specialized to transfer to a traditional EMS provider cost-effectively. * Similar to the testing advantages, the company is able to offer economies-of-scale in specialized components that would not be possible in a company making a wider range of product types. Dawn Poirier is director of program management at Narragansett EMS (narragansett-tech.com); dawn.poirier@nimaging.com. |
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