EMS production: "Made in Germany is a quality advantage"
A+B Electronic is known for EMS production in Germany. But how does this benefit customers? An interview with QMR Christian Friedrich about quality, short distances and ash clouds over Europe
It's all about money? In many respects this is true - economic factors determine the world of work. When comparing prices, Germany as a manufacturing location often lags behind other Eastern European or Asian countries. However, there are factors that speak in favour of "Made in Germany", especially in EMS production. In this interview, Christian Friedrich, Quality Management Representative at A+B Electronic, is certain that our customers benefit from domestic production.
Putting the "Made in Germany" seal to the test
Mr Friedrich, aren't the days when "Made in Germany" still mattered long gone?
Christian Friedrich: Admittedly, the diesel scandal and other management issues from German companies have certainly tarnished its reputation. However, in my experience, "Made in Germany" still counts as a seal of quality for technology, for machines, in medical technology and in engineering in general. At least that's what our customers in the EMS sector tell us.
Germany is not one of the cheapest manufacturing locations for EMS production. Why should companies still have their assemblies manufactured in Germany?
Christian Friedrich: The advantages are clear: Regardless of whether you are a start-up looking to outsource manufacturing for the first time or an established development company looking for a second-source partner, you want to know who you are dealing with. The best way to find out is to look your future manufacturing partner in the eye and in their documents. In practice, this looks like this: visit them, take a look at the production halls, talk to the contacts on site. This creates a basis on which you can later be confident that your product will be manufactured exactly as you envisage it.
Why "Made in Germany" is still not yesterday's news
What other advantages are there?
Christian Friedrich: Another advantage is that we offer our customers everything from a single source - from THT assembly and complete device assembly to various test and inspection procedures. If you as a developer outsource this large number of production steps abroad, you have a lot of administrative work. And usually in English. Communication is a key factor. Not so much when things are running smoothly - the problems usually start when something doesn't go according to plan. Then you may not only have to contend with language barriers, but also - depending on where you're manufacturing - with time differences, cultural peculiarities and unfamiliar public holidays.
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Manufacturing in Germany, on the other hand, means that you can simply walk into the production halls with the phone in your hand. We can communicate the customer's concerns more directly internally and provide quick, comprehensible answers. At A+B Electronic in particular, this also means that we can react very flexibly to customer-specific adjustments in the work processes if the product makes it necessary. Our experience shows that customers appreciate knowing their contacts personally and speaking a common language. This should not be underestimated, because even two people who speak English but have different native languages regularly misunderstand each other when it comes to specialized topics.
Video conferencing, data transfers, multicultural teams - digitalization is also making it easier and easier for us to manufacture abroad ...
Christian Friedrich: That's right, there are advantages and disadvantages. Digitalization is accelerating globalization. We can have production done where it seems most favorable to us. However, this makes us dependent. Tsunamis in Asia, pandemics around the world, ash clouds over Europe - we have experienced all of these in recent years and have often realized that short transport routes within Germany sometimes ensure economic survival.
How do your customers benefit from EMS production "Made in Germany"?
Christian Friedrich: Let's stay with the transport routes for a moment. Many of our customers deliberately choose a German production site in order to minimize their carbon footprint. Air freight, sea freight, goods transport - logistics in general is a key point. In an economic sense, but of course also in terms of climate change. In other words: the shorter the logistics chain, the better. Sustainability is playing an increasingly important role, and the ecological footprint is an increasingly important indicator for companies. The same applies to the fair treatment and payment of employees and low staff turnover. In addition to a low complaint rate, these are the factors that make up quality.
Verifiable quality via standards and guidelines
Almost every German company now claims to offer "quality". How do you define "quality"?
Christian Friedrich: The term is used excessively, that's true. And it's not uncommon for quality promises on the one hand and quality expectations on the customer side to be far removed from each other. When we talk about "Made in Germany" in the EMS sector, we are talking about a nationwide - not identical, but similar - quality standard. In other words, our customers have quality expectations that are in line with our own standards. This includes, for example, our production site in Huntlosen. Our qualified and long-standing employees work with state-of-the-art technology in our production halls. Our customers can see this for themselves on site. To make quality measurable, we use standardized guidelines such as the IPC or ISO certification.
So, you define quality through norms, guidelines and standardisation - and agree on a common quality level with your customers. Don't foreign suppliers follow the same procedure?
Christian Friedrich: You also have ISO guidelines abroad, but - to put it charmingly - country-specific interpretations of the standards often apply. In this area, "Made in Germany" is a quality advantage - because it is recognised worldwide that we work strictly according to specifications here.
Our customers specify the IPC classes directly when placing the order. Together, we then define further quality requirements for production. This is the standard in our industry. It becomes more difficult when a customer requests production according to IPC class 3 but has not developed their device according to this standard - because this high level begins in the development phase. If we are involved early enough, we explain this to the customer, which is part of our consultancy service. In production itself, our processes are optimised in such a way that we already meet IPC class 2 as standard.
What is the IPC guideline?
The IPC guideline is an international assembly guideline, or component guideline, which specifies which minor deviations from the standard are permissible. It is divided into three classes.
- Class 1: General Electronic Products
- Consumer goods industry, consumer electronics. Products in this class must function perfectly.
- Class 2: Dedicated Service Electronic Products
- Devices, instruments, communication technology. Products that run continuously and require a long service life.
- Class 3: High Performance Electronic Products
- Products used in medical or military technology must be fully functional at all times - failure is not tolerated.
An example: A point is defined as the optimum position on a printed circuit board. The IPC class specifies the percentage by which this point may deviate during production. The guideline is issued by the IPC organisation (Institute for Printed Circuits).
Would you like to gain an insight into our production site in Huntlosen? Then find out more about us here - or contact us directly with no obligation. Then we can talk about future projects and how we can grow together.
