optimising global growth potential Enics Group

optimising global growtH potEntial

The Enics Group is a leading global Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider. The company helps industrial OEMs to optimise their value chains and improve their competitiveness through increased productivity and greater reliability. Philip Yorke takes a closer look at a hugely diverse and successful company whose world-class offering is creating a greener, more efficient and more cost-effective world.

Enics is the partner of choice for professional electronics companies in the fields of energy, industrial automation, transportation, building automation and instrumentation. It is one of the top EMS providers in the world and is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Today the company employs more than 3000 people spread across eight manufacturing plants in Europe and Asia.

The company was founded in 2004 as a result of a management buyout of Elcoteq’s Industrial Electronics division, however Ahlstrom Capital of Sweden is the main owner of the company. The year it was founded Enics started a new production plant in Elva, southern Estonia, where the company is now the largest employer. Innovation and acquisition driving sales

The meteoric growth of Enics is largely a result of its commitment to innovation and the strategic acquisition of synergistic companies. For example, in 2005 Enics acquired Altronix of Sweden and in 2006 the company’s Beijing facility was officially inaugurated. Other strategic acquisitions included the takeover of electronics activities from ABB of Switzerland, as well as purchasing the assets of Nova Dubnica of Slovakia. The company also established a major out-sourcing office in Hong Kong in 2008. In 2009 it acquired the Industrial Electronics Services division of Sweco, Finland and in 2012 began operations in Suzhou, China.

Today Enics provides end-to-end EMS services ranging from engineering, full-scale manufacturing and after sales services, to sourcing and supply-chain management. “Our world-class offering includes fast prototyping, new product introduction (NPI) cost reduction services, test system development, printed circuit board assembly, box build and system assembly. We strive to achieve better performance in everything we do, and we want to be part of positive change for lives and businesses,” said Hannu Keinanen, President and CEO of the Enics Group.

Rewarding ‘sustainable’ results

Recently Enics was recognised by Vaisala, a global leader in environmental and industrial measurement with its Supplier of the Year Award in two categories: Sustainable Business and Technology. These highly coveted awards recognise Enics’ contribution to embracing Vaisala’s goal of having a net positive impact on society, the environment and the global economy.

Dirk Zimanky, Senior Vice-President, Market Execution at Enics said, “We at Enics are extremely proud and honoured to receive two Vaisala supplier awards. Vaisala is one of Enics’ key customers and we are delighted to serve them. Our excellent relationship is based on close cooperation, high responsiveness and proactivity, and we wish to develop this even further.”

Last year’s winners were selected out of more than 500 of Vaisala’s top international suppliers. The award is the highest honour that Vaisala can bestow upon a supplier. Enics was also the only supplier to be recognised with awards in two categories.

Growing product portfolio

Enics is constantly growing its portfolio, as well as the scope of its global engineering services. This is now being optimised by the company’s new partnership with Goepel Electronic’s Strategic partnership programme known as ‘GATE’ (Goepel Associated Technical Experts). The main focus of the cooperation is on the development and practical implementation of new solutions, products and modules based upon ‘JTAG/Boundary Scan’ instrumentation as well as enhancement in local support.

“We are actively developing our scope of engineering services. By widening our service portfolio in the test development sector through the enhanced partnership with Goepel Electronic, one of the world leaders in its field, we will be able to offer even more efficient test system solutions to our customers,” said Kristian Federley, Vice-President, Engineering Services and After Sales Services at Enics. “The Embedded System Access based (ESA) test technologies from Goepel Electronic will enable us to optimise future test

solutions, and to be more economical, in addition to having superior diagnostics,” he added.

The aim of the global alliance programme, GATE, is the applicationspecific transfer of Goepel Electronic’s JTAG/Boundary Scan product portfolio into a variety of specific custom test instruments through close cooperation. Thereby ESA (Embedded System Access) technologies are intended to be offered even more easily to the user.

estonia expansion

Enics is celebrating the fourth expansion in a row of its state-of-theart manufacturing facility in Elva, Estonia following an investment of more than €5 million in the construction and expansion of its production and test laboratory flagship.

Jaanus Aal, site manager at Enics Elva said, “We are growing and have invested significantly in new technology to respond to our customers’ needs, whose products are more and more demanding. Automation makes our work processes much more efficient, which is why I can say with confidence that we are one of the top players in our field on the global scale.”

The Enics Elva facility is mainly focused on higher volumes for leading industrial electronics customers. It is the biggest private employer in southern Estonia with almost 700 people employed at the site today. n