Electronic Manufacturing Services Research Articles

Enablers for Adopting Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directives by Electronic Manufacturing Service Providers

The Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) industry contributes significantly to toxic waste generation due to its fabrication processes. Notably, adherence to the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive varies amongst EMS providers, despite its aim to reduce electronic waste. This study explores the factors influencing EMS providers’ decision to adopt the RoHS directive, utilizing the technology–organization–environment (TOE) and the human–organization–technology (HOT) fit, or the TOE-HOT fit framework. We validated our framework using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), based on responses from 379 questionnaires from major EMS providers. The results demonstrated that expert resources, adequate resources, perceived industrial pressure, institutional pressure, and costs were positively associated with RoHS adoption. However, innovation, relative advantage, and verification ability were identified as significant barriers. In particular, innovation in the human dimension was the key determinant for RoHS adoption. Therefore, clear policy instruments and regulations may enhance RoHS adoption by EMS providers. These findings can guide environmental policy definitions in governmental laws and strategies, encouraging EMS providers and other firms to adopt RoHS standards.

The Effect of Postponement Strategy Towards the Financial Performance of Manufacturing Companies in Malaysia

Today’s manufacturing companies must simultaneously deal with externally increasing customers multi-item requirements with rapid lead-time, demanded high-quality products, but internally on a limited capacity. This study aims is to explore the important elements in postponement strategies and to identify the impact of postponement strategies towards financial performance of the manufacturing companies  in Malaysia. Using qualitative research method, this study employs standardized open-ended interviews with five key informants from electronic manufacturing services, solar panel, telco, medical, and latex industries. ATLAS.TI was used to analysed the data. This study reveals that postponement strategies implemented have saved various costs, enhance its product quality, increase production speed, and definitely enhance their profits which results from increase revenue. Overall, this study supports the Service Level Model which suggest that by integrating demand management processes in the postponement strategies, the service level offered to customers can be achieved and it leads to the improvement on the yearly financial performance. The empirical evidence of this study provides a solid foundation for the manufacturing companies in Malaysia to incorporate postponement strategies while observing the market strategy to grab more customers for business enhancement.

Intelligent Platform Research System for the Highly Integrated Development of My Country's Electronics Manufacturing Industry and Service Industry

With the help of normative analysis, empirical analysis and comparative analysis, this article combines the characteristic facts and empirical data of the development of China's producer service industry and electronic manufacturing industry to deeply analyze the internal and dynamic factors of the development of the producer service industry and the factors affecting the development of China's producer service industry. On the basis of theoretical and empirical analysis, to explore the underlying reasons for the low level of development and development quality of China’s producer service industry and the low level of interaction and integration with the electronics manufacturing industry, an intelligent platform for integrated development based on deep learning has been established, enabling both parties fusion efficiency increased by 7.3%.

Association between shift work and serum homocysteine level in female electronic manufacturing services workers.

Shift work has been shown to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) based on several evidences. The classic risk factors of CVD include age, hypertension, smoking, obesity and diabetes. Recently, the serum homocysteine level has been reported to be a valuable indicator of CVD risk. This study aimed to determine the variation in serum homocysteine level as a cardiovascular risk indicator among female workers according to shift work. The data of regular health examination of workers at an electronic manufacturing services company in Yeongnam region, South Korea in 2019 were examined in this study. The investigation was based on a cross-sectional study conducted on 697 female workers (199 day workers and 498 shift workers). The sociodemographic and biochemical characteristics were compared between day workers and shift workers. Through a logistic regression analysis, the odds ratio (OR) of the increased serum homocysteine level in relation to shift work was determined. Compared to female day workers, female shift workers showed significantly higher level of serum homocysteine (8.85 ± 2.16 vs. 9.42 ± 2.04 μmol/mL; p = 0.001). The OR of day workers against shift workers was 1.81 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.25-2.63). With the adjustment of variables that may influence the level of serum homocysteine, the adjusted OR was 1.68 (95% CI: 1.09-2.60). The serum homocysteine level was significantly higher in shift workers than in day workers. It is thus likely to be a useful predictor of CVD in shift workers.

Resource Centric Analysis of RSA and ECC Algorithms on FPGA

The electronics industry’s shadow side is counterfeiting, and the doom is growing. Almost every business in the supply chain is impacted by the issue, including component suppliers, distributors, Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) providers, Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs), Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), and their clients. In fact, any electronics firm that wishes to benefit from the cheap costs associated with globalization must be aware that someone along the supply chain may be persuaded to acquire fake items and sell them as genuine. A thorough grasp of chip designs, including partitioning and prioritizing data transit and storage, as well as a range of obfuscation techniques and activity monitoring, is necessary to reduce the danger of future hardware breaches. To battle this problem, we need to enforce various security measures at different levels of the supply chain. The recent methods include implementing cryptographic ciphers into the devices. The commonly used ciphers are the hard ciphers. But owing to the advancements and increase in the number of low power and resource constrained devices, there has been a dire need to design ciphers that support such devices. This paper talks about the advantages of lightweight ciphers, aiming to secure low power devices and other embedded devices. This work mainly compares two algorithms, RSA(hard cipher) and ECC(light cipher) in terms of their device utilization and power consumption on a Kintex-7. The presented results are justified from simulations performed on the Vivado design suite.

Eco²-Screening Method Supporting SME-Product and Process Innovations in Electronics Manufacturing Services Sector

Consumption exceeds ecological limitations and still the market develops an insufficient incentive for the consideration of environmental aspects in the supply chain. In order to mitigate negative environmental effects, influence is needed in the earliest possible phase of innovation processes. Numerous studies, however, detect systematic use of ecological and economical innovation instruments mainly in large enterprises. In inverse consequence small and medium enterprises (SMEs) implement fewer environmental innovations, even though 99 % of the enterprises in Germany count less than 500 employees and adhere significant innovation potential. In order to provide a scope for action for SMEs an instrument for consideration of environmental product and process implications is needed that claims little economical resources of users and is easily applicable. Based on the Design Science Research Process a Screening method is developed for SMEs in the Electronics Manufacturing Services sector to enable a monitoring of ecological and economical optimization of innovation processes, while not demanding costly Life Cycle Assessment or additional questioning of suppliers. The eco²-screening method uses existing data and follows a modular design.

Real options approach for technology renewal in an Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) company

Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS.) companies are in a highly competitive environment where investment in technology plays a significant role in the company's performance. The equipment efficiency is directly converted to revenue. The equipment efficiency decays over time; keeping the equipment represents a loss in productivity, and renewing the equipment requires an additional cost. There is a continuous decision process to determine the optimal time to replace the old equipment with a new one. Traditionally, the optimal time to renew is when the machine's revenue matches the cost. This paper studies the renewal decision using a real options approach, adding the uncertainty factor. The variables are modeled as Geometric Brownian Motions. We provide a literature review of renewal real options and describe the models we use. The one-factor model considers the revenue as stochastic; the two-factor model considers the revenue and cost as stochastic; the technological improvement models extend the two-factor model to include a premium in revenue for replacing the equipment. An overview of the electronic manufacturing dynamics is described; we select a product whose manufacturing process depends on machines. We provide a methodology for the model's implementation and how to determine the parameters; the results are compared to the deterministic approach. Finally, we discuss the models' advantages, disadvantages, and limitations.

Fully Connected Convolutional Neural Network in PCB Soldering Point Inspection

In Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) industry, Printed Circuit Board (PCB) inspection is tricky and hard, especially for soldering point inspection due to the extremely tiny size and inconsistent appearance for uneven heating in reflow soldering process. Conventional computer vision technique based on OpenCV or Halcon usually cause false positive call for originally good soldering point on PCB because OpenCV or Halcon use the pre-defined threshold in color proportion for deciding whether the specific soldering point is OK or NG (not good). However, soldering point forms are various after heating in reflow soldering process. This paper puts forward a VGG structure deep convolutional neural network, which is named SolderNet for processing soldering point after reflow heating process to effectively inspect soldering point status, reduce omission rate and error rate, and increase first pass rate. SolderNet consists of 11 hidden convolution layers and 3 densely connected layers. Accuracy reports are divided into OK point recognition and NG point recognition. For OK soldering point recognition, 92% is achieved. For NG soldering point recognition, 99% is achieved. The dataset is collected from KAGA Co. Ltd Plant in Suzhou. First pass rate at KAGA plant is increased from 25% to 80% in general.

[The mediating role of psychological capital between occupational stress and suicidal ideation].

Objective: To analyze the mediating effect of psychological capital (PsyCap) between occupational stress and suicidal ideation. Methods: In September 2017, stratified-cluster sampling method was adopted to select employees of an electronic manufacturing service industry as respondents for a questionnaire survey in Jiangsu province. The demographic characteristics of employees were collected. A total of 2 465 employees were investigated, and 2 216 valid questionnaires were collected. The level of occupational stress and PsyCap was assessed by the Effort-Reward Imbalance Scale(ERI)and PsyCap Questionnaire. Results: The age of 2 216 employees was (28.70±5.26) years old, including 1 230 males (55.5%). The scores of occupational stress on effort, reward and over-commitment were (3.08±0.63), (3.73±0.60) and (2.51±0.68), respectively. The average ERI index (ratio of effort to return) was (0.88±0.39). The total score of PsyCap was (86.62±15.23). The detection rate of suicidal ideation within two weeks was 13.9% (309/2 216). The average score of effort and over-commitment and the ERI index were positively correlated with the number of suicidal ideation detected within two weeks, with correlation coefficients about 0.081, 0.141 and 0.164, respectively. The average score of reward and total score of PsyCap were negatively correlated with the number of suicidal ideation detected within two weeks, with correlation coefficients about -0.206 and -0.228, respectively. The mediating effect results showed that PsyCap had mediating effect on the effort, reward, over-commitment and suicidal ideation of occupational stress respectively, with mediating effect values of -0.087 (95%CI: -0.018,-0.019), -0.299 (95%CI: -0.428,-0.200) and 0.096 (95%CI: 0.0394, -0.170). The mediating effect percentages were 9.43%, 17.92%, and 9.54%, respectively. Conclusion: PsyCap has a mediating effect between effort, reward, over-commitment of occupational stress and suicidal ideation.

The Priority Order and Sensitivity Analysis of Mechanical System Failure Mode Improvement Based on Computer-aided

Failure mode is an analysis method used to determine potential failure modes and their causes. Specifically, through the implementation of FMEA, the weaknesses of the product can be found before the product design or production process is truly realized, and the product defects can be determined at the prototype stage or before mass production. FMEA is the first set of analysis mode formed by NASA. FMEA is a practical method to solve problems, which can be applied to many engineering fields. At present, many automobile manufacturers and electronic manufacturing service providers (EMS) in the world have adopted this mode to manage and monitor the design and production process. In the product design stage and process design stage, it is a systematic activity to analyze each process one by one, find out all potential failure modes, based on computer analysis of its possible consequences, and take necessary measures to improve product quality and reliability.

Low-voiding solder pastes in LED assembly

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate voiding phenomena in solder joints under thermal pads of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) assembled in mass production environment by reflow soldering by using seven low-voiding lead-free solder pastes.Design/methodology/approachThe solder pastes investigated are of SAC305 type, Innolot type or they are especially formulated by the manufacturers on the base of (SnAgCu) alloys with addition of some alloying elements such as Bi, In, Sb and Ti to provide low-void contents. The SnPb solder paste – OM5100 – was used as a benchmark. The solder paste coverage of LED solder pads was chosen as a measure of void contents in solder joints because of common usage of this parameter in industry practice.FindingsIt was found that the highest coverage and, related to it, the least void contents are in solder joints formed with the pastes LMPA-Q and REL61, which are characterized by the coverage of mean value 93.13% [standard deviation (SD) = 2.72%] and 92.93% (SD = 2.77%), respectively. The void diameters reach the mean value equal to 0.061 mm (SD = 0.044 mm) for LMPA-Q and 0.074 mm (SD = 0.052 mm) for REL61. The results are presented in the form of histograms, plot boxes and X-ray images. Some selected solder joints were observed with 3D computer tomography.Originality/valueThe statistical analyses are carried out on the basis of 2D X-ray images with using Origin software. They enable to compare features of various solder pastes recommended by manufacturers as low voiding. The results might be useful for solder paste manufacturers or electronic manufacturing services.

Occupational Stress and Risk Factors Among Workers from Electronic Manufacturing Service Companies in China

What is already known about this topic? Occupational stress and workplace health have become issues of significant concern for both employees and employers. The workers from electronic manufacturing services (EMS) industry in China are exposed to increasing occupational hazards and injuries. Despite the fact that it is a known health risk for psychological and medical disorders, only few studies have investigate the prevalence of occupational stress and risk factors among EMS workers. What is added by this report? Analysis of data from the EMS industry of Occupational Stress Surveillance Program with a sample of 21,362 participants from 20 EMS companies. Results show that the prevalence of high strain and effort-reward imbalance were 19.5% and 15.8%, respectively, which are significantly differed by selected socio-demographic and job characteristics. Participants who are migrant, or working in the assembly-line position or in shift are exposed to higher stress level. What are the implications for public health practice? EMS workers are liable to be at risk for occupational stress and for developing psychological disorders and diseases. The findings of this study contribute to an evidence-base which inform the development and implementation of strategies aimed at reducing occupational stress of EMS workers should be at organizational and individual level.

The Impact of e-Supply Chain Management Systems on Procurement Operations and Cost Reduction in the Electronics Manufacturing Services Industry

The article examines the effect of e-supply chain management systems in the operations and business models in the North American electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry. A causal and descriptive research study was conducted based on a survey applied to thirty-six individuals in EMS firms in order to determine the impact of e-SCM on their key supply chain operations and business models. Results of the research revealed that e-SCM had a positive effect in the operations and business models of the EMS industry as these showed that the profits of the firm increased and internal communications was improved due to the implementation of e-SCM. The research also showed that e-SCMs have many technical issues such as problems with process automation and transmission of supply chain data, e-procurement effectiveness, integration with existing systems and the monitoring of inventory systems and the purchasing process. The research also shows how social media and the internet has affected the business models of the EMS by improving communications and operations in the overall supply chain.

Corporate social responsibility employment narratives: a linguistic analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it investigates whether and to what extent “linguistic hedging”, an impression management form of linguistic expression that conveys an ambiguous level of commitment, is used in corporate social responsibility (CSR) employment narratives; and second, it explores whether there is any difference in the use of linguistic hedging between written and spoken corporate forms of language. It mobilises these objectives by examining employee-related narratives made by electronic manufacturing services (EMS) providers domiciled in Taiwan, in the context of labour malpractice incidents.Design/methodology/approachTwo groups of data are examined: corporate responsibility reports (written language) and interviews and speeches of corporate founders and senior executives (spoken language). The research sample is ten Taiwanese EMS firms, all of which attracted public criticism and scrutiny due to a series of employee-related incidents. The sample period is between 2009 and 2013. Linguistic hedging is measured quantitatively by the relative word frequency of hedges, using the concordance software ANTCONC, with findings interpreted through the lens of legitimacy theory and impression management.FindingsThe study found that hedging was evident in CSR narratives. The EMS providers in Taiwan appeared to use hedging in employee-related disclosures to manage legitimacy challenges due to employee-related incidents that had happened in their assembly plants. The adjustments in employee-related disclosures made by the EMS firms as a legitimation strategy can be seen as a rhetoric device of impression management or a form of symbolic legitimation to persuade society to restore their legitimacy status. Further, overall hedging was more frequently used in spoken than written language, which suggests that rhetorical hedging in written narratives is more likely to be a deliberate choice of tactics to influence stakeholder perceptions and thereby manage corporate legitimacy.Originality/valueThe study introduces a new analytical technique, linguistic hedging, into the CSR literature. This enriches research methods used in this field, providing more compelling insights into the relationship between the use of language and CSR narratives in the process of corporate legitimation of employee-related practices. This study thus provides a platform for future computational-linguistics studies in the field of CSR.

A framework with revised rough-DEMATEL to capture and evaluate requirements for smart industrial product-service system of systems

Smart industrial product-service system of systems (SiP-S3) is a new extension of industrial PSS via smart technology and SoS (system of systems) engineering. A framework with revised rough-DEMATEL method is proposed to capture and evaluate requirements for SiP-S3. From the various interactions in value stream mapping of SiP-S3, business, functional and non-functional requirements can be captured and converged into SiP-S3 requirements. Due to the interrelation between requirements of SiP-S3 and uncertainty of expert judgments, rough-DEMATEL is adopted but is revised in two aspects. Generally, SiP-S3 requirement items are plentiful, a set of programming code for rough set approximation is firstly given to reduce manual calculation burden. Moreover, compared to multiple operators of modified-CFCS (converting fuzzy values into crisp scores) plus SVL (single vector-length), a feasible and simpler operator of AVL (average vector-length) on rough-prominence and rough-relation is firstly devised to prioritise requirements. As such, roughness can be remained till at the end of calculation procedure to avoid uncertain assessment information loss. Surface mount technology (SMT) is not trivial in electronic manufacturing service industry, an illustrative case study of SMTE-S3 (SMT equipment-service system of systems) is demonstrated to verify feasibility and potential of proposal methodological framework.

The effect of shift work on high sensitivity C-reactive protein level among female workers.

BackgroundThis study assessed the association between shift work and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) level, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), in female workers in electronics manufacturing services (EMS).MethodsFemale EMS workers who received special medical examinations for workers in Gyeongnam, Korea between January 2017 and December 2017 were enrolled in this study. Their age, marital status, education level, alcohol consumption, smoking habit, regular exercise, quality of sleep, work stress, and depression were investigated, and blood tests were conducted. The t- and χ2 tests were conducted to compare the general and biochemical characteristics between daytime and shift worker groups. Age-adjusted partial correlation analysis was performed to examine the linear relationship between hs-CRP level and other risk factors for CVDs. In addition, the difference in hs-CRP levels according to work schedule was analyzed by ANCOVA after adjusting for variables that could affect the hs-CRP level.ResultsAlthough the average hs-CRP levels did not differ significantly between daytime and shift workers (0.92 ± 1.87 and 1.07 ± 2.20 mg/dL, respectively), shift workers tended to show a higher hs-CRP level (p = 0.067). After adjusting for variables that can affect the hs-CRP level, the estimated average hs-CRP level was significantly higher in shift workers (1.325 ± 0.156 mg/dL) than that in daytime workers (0.652 ± 0.350 mg/dL) (p = 0.003).ConclusionsThe results of this study identified a relationship between shift work and hs-CRP level increase in women. Because multiple studies have reported associations between increased hs-CRP and CVD, follow-up of hs-CRP may help early detection of CVD in shift workers.

Jabil: Navigating through Supply Chain Uncertainty

In 2018, as the trade wars between the United States and China reached new heights, John faced challenges as he needed to quickly execute a plan to mitigate any risks to his company. The imposed tariffs were putting significant pressure on John’s current business initiatives, financial goals, and could derail is customers’ satisfaction. John knew that he was in safe hands with the support of Jabil’s supply chain and compliance directors. As one of the worlds largest Electronic Manufacturing Service companies, Jabil prides itself with understanding logistics, compliance, and operations competencies to support the growth of current and future business, all while mitigating and avoiding potential risks in the market. With the impact of the imposed tariffs beginning to affect John’s business, he knew that he needed to make a quick decision; either move operations out of China to a non-sanctioned country, continue the operations in China with the hope that the sanctions would end but risk customer satisfaction, or continue manufacturing the products in China and shipping the incomplete goods to another non-sanctioned location for final assembly, ultimately avoiding the tariff impacts. How was John expected to make this decision without understanding the trade uncertainties in the future? John knew that he needed to make his business profitable for him and the customer, but what approach did he need to execute on to keep the business sustainable? All these questions were impactful on the success of the business and could ultimately impact any long-term financial gains and growth with his customer base. John was anxious to come to a resolution, and knew that his next decisions would be critical to his business.

Productivity Improvement Through Line Balancing at Electronic Company – Case Study

A good manufacturing practice for production assembly can result in better productivity for the organization. This study focusses on productivity improvement of Electronics Manufacturing Service Company (EMSC) production assembly. It also aims to reduce waste and to propose a leaner line balancing with the elimination of non-value-added activities during the assembly. This study also aims to utilize current workstation to carter for the needs of the workstation to achieve 39 seconds takt time. Time study has been conducted for all workstations and found that all of the cycle time for each workstation exceeds the required takt time of 39 seconds. The bottleneck is at workstation number two with a recorded standard time of 54.1 seconds to complete the assembly thus causes high work in progress at workstation number two and excessive operator idle time to subsequent workstations. The main issue of EMSC is high volume demands from the customer and committing to the shipment plan. By adding one additional operator to workstation number two and a proper distribution of tasks may help EMSC to increase their production output. Time study is recorded in standard work form for future improvement.

A modified Genetic Algorithm approach to minimize total weighted tardiness with stochastic rework and reprocessing times

Abstract Scheduling challenges are typical with electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers. The rework and reprocessing of failed electronics components consume more time in the production line, causing jobs to miss their due dates. A mathematical model and a Modified Shortest Total Estimated Processing Time (MSTEPT) Algorithm to minimize the Total Weighted Tardiness (TWT) are proposed in this research. This research then develops a novel modified Genetic Algorithm approach to solve the scheduling problem with stochastic rework and reprocessing time. While the Genetic Algorithm as a methodology to solve scheduling problems has been developed in earlier research articles, the existing set of genes in the chromosomes of a regular Genetic Algorithm would not be able of handle jobs waiting to undergo reprocessing. The modified Genetic Algorithm in this research introduces the concept of priority genes, specifically encoded to handle jobs waiting to be reprocessed after they have been reworked. Experimental results indicate that the proposed modified GA outperforms the best of different commonly used dispatch rules, in terms of solution quality. For small-to-medium-sized job shops, the proposed algorithm outperforms optimal results from CPLEX® optimal solver, as well as those from the MSTEPT algorithm.

Legitimising corporate reputation in times of employee distress through disclosure

PurposeThis paper aims to examine changes of non-financial voluntary reporting practices over time in response to episodes of employee-related distress. It investigates employee-related disclosures by the four largest electronic manufacturing services firms in China between 2008 and 2013 during a series of employment-related incidents, to investigate how the firms re-legitimate their reputation in response to the media coverage on those incidents.Design/methodology/approachA series of employee-related incidents that occurred in 2010-2012 is selected as the focus of this study, with total coverage of employee-related disclosures between 2008 and 2013. These incidents are directly linked to three of the four sample companies: Foxconn, Pegatron and Compal Electronics. Employee-related disclosures in corporate social responsibility (CSR) stand-alone reports are coded by a set of specifically designed instructions, and newspaper articles about employee-related incidents are coded for sentiment. Results are interpreted through two theoretical lenses: the media agenda setting theory and the legitimacy theory.FindingsNewspapers reported the employee-related incidents in a way detrimental to the legitimacy of firms that directly involved in the selected industry. In the process of legitimation, firms switch between disclosing more employee-related information and reducing disclosures. The self-expectation on organizational legitimacy also affects how CSR reporting is used in legitimation. The employee-related disclosure analysed is closer to symbolic legitimation than substantive legitimation.Originality/valueThis study contributes to reporting practice by showing that employee-related disclosure is largely vacuous and to a greater extent is used as symbolic legitimation. The quality of disclosure requires significant improvement. This study contributes to the literature by using the legitimacy theory to interpret employee-related disclosure in China, addressing inadequate research efforts in the context of social and human rights dimensions of CSR reporting.