EMS@C-LEVEL
As Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company and SCOOP writer, Philip Stoten, continues to talk to EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) executives he learns more about their individual and collective experiences and their expectations for their own businesses and for the entire electronic manufacturing industry.
EMS@C-LEVEL
Unlocking Tunisia's Potential in the EMS Industry: On Tour with EMSNOW & in4ma
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
How does a small North African country like Tunisia stand out in the global EMS industry? Prepare to take a look behind the scenes of Tunisia's electronics manufacturing sector with Dieter Weiss of in4ma and Eric Miscoll of EMSNOW, as the EMS industry's favorite couple take to the road in their 4th tour. Dieter and Eric share stories and insights following visits to Zollner, AsteelFlash, Lacroix, TIS (part of ALL Circuits), ATEMS, Circor, La Pratique Electronique, emkaMED and OneTech. Dieter shares some of the significant metrics of revenue, headcount, and SMT lines, and discuss the promising trends in productivity that are setting Tunisia apart in the competitive EMS market.
Eric explains the unusual dynamics of Tunisia's export-only business model, where factories operate almost as independent trade zones, benefiting from streamlined customs processes that facilitate tax-free importing and exporting. We dive deep into the operational specifics of these factories, which serve primarily the automotive and communication sectors, and are equipped with technological capabilities like high and low-volume SMT lines and THT wave soldering lines.
We navigate the challenges and opportunities in Tunisian manufacturing, focusing on the expansion and optimization of facilities, as we shed light on the highly skilled yet underemployed talent pool of Tunisian engineers and explore how cultural pride influences their career choices. This coupled with Tunisia's competitive labor costs, have positioned it as a viable alternative to manufacturing hubs in Eastern Europe and the Far East.
Don’t miss this comprehensive look at Tunisia’s potential as a key player in the EMS industry and a key supplier to Europe.
Dieter Weiss of in4ma was sponsored on this tour by IPC who are doing sterling work in Europe and globally to support the electronics manufacturing supply chain.
While Eric and EMSNOW EMSNOW thanks their sponsors of this research:
Cogiscan – the factory digitalization partner for electronics manufacturers globally
Luminovo – your copilot for quoting and procuring PCBAs
Mycronic – Bringing tomorrow´s electronics to life
TrustedParts – Genuine electronic components from only authorized sources.
EMS@C-Level is hosted by global inspection leaders Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Global Electronics Association (https://www.electronics.org)
You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.
Welcome to EMS at Sea Level and welcome to this special EMS at Sea Level in conjunction with EMS Now and Informa on tour. I just want to start by thanking you, gentlemen, for doing this tour it's certainly been plenty of chatter in the industry whilst you've been in Tunisia and a quick thank you to your very generous and kind sponsors IPC, on behalf of DITA, and Cogis, grand Micronic, luminovo and Trusted Parts for Eric's element in there. So extensive trip, eric, you've been a very busy couple of boys. Just give me a kind of a quick catch up of which companies you visited and where you've been. I know it's been quite a few.
Speaker 2It's been a whirlwind so far. We arrived last Sunday in Tunisia. We then, on Monday, we did two companies a day through the week and one on Friday. So I'll just name those in order. On Monday we saw Zolna and Estiel Flash. Zolna has a new business park that they're building down there, which was interesting. Estiel Flash is more in the city, in the heart of Tunis, where Zona was about an hour south of Tunis.
Speaker 2Then on Tuesday we saw Lacroix and TIS. Tis, of course, is the Tunisian subsidiary of all circuits, the French EMS. On Wednesday we saw ATEMS they're part of the Alteryx Group and Psycorps, the Swiss-based EMS, who has many, many facilities. Now On Thursday it was interesting we drove out and we saw a company called La Pratique Electronique. La Pratique was the first true indigenous Tunisian company EMS that we saw. All the others were foreign-owned Tunisian company EMS that we saw. All the others were foreign-owned. And then in the afternoon we dropped by and saw Emca Med, another part of a French company, and on Friday we only saw one, but it was a very good end to the. We saw Elion Tech, who is part of the One Tech group and they are more of a conglomerate with lots of different things going on there, and so that was a great end to it.
Speaker 2And lest you think it was all just, you know, work, work, work. We tried to squeeze a little fun in. We had a nice evening out last Wednesday night in the heart of Tenise, on a rooftop overlooking everything. I got to stroll around a bit and then the day afternoon we left. We actually went out to the coast a bit and strolled through some of the old stuff. We didn't get to see any of the ruins, although we did see the aqueduct, the 2,000-year-old aqueduct that is remarkably well-preserved. That came from the mountains all the way to Carthage, like 124 kilometers. So as an old history buff, I love that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's important, you know, if you, if you guys, take a, take a vacation together as often as you, as you, as you seem to be doing, important to get some culture in there as well as just spending your, spending your days geeking out in factories, just again to get a scale of what's going on.
Speaker 3Give me some of the kind of big headline numbers with respect to Tunisia, the kind of scale in terms of revenue, headcount, smt lines, whatever you think, our figures are still very rough to say. So we did get a lot of information. I had done previous analysis of this market. Still, we were astonished with some of the statements made during our visit in regards to the quantity of companies. It ranged between 60 and 134 EMS companies in Tunisia, which was shocking, looking at my list of just 23 companies. Well, we have to realize that, and that was what we were told as well, that there is many, many very small Tunisian companies, many, many very small Tunisian companies, whereas the big companies are full, 100% export companies. We have to realize that there are companies who are serving the North African market as well, because there is a demand in North Africa as well. And then I had to break it down, according to my definition, what an EMS is. You know, a pure cable harness manufacturer or pure electrical cabinet manufacturer, in my opinion, is not an EMS. So my conclusion was that we are talking about 60 EMS companies, of which at the moment I'm missing 37. And those 37, as I said, are probably in, the majority serving the North African market. They are probably small as well, in the region of 1 million, maybe 1.5 million, but that's it.
Speaker 3So we did a rough calculation on the revenues, which still have an inaccuracy of, let's say, plus minus 15%.
Speaker 3We came out with 830 million euros for 2023, which is a small plus, a small plus of plus 2.2% to 2022. Those companies employ about 11,500 heads in 2022, employ about 11,500 heads in 2022, and they reduced already in 2023 by 500. Even so, the revenue still went up. But we have been talking with one company who said well, we are constantly working on a productivity increase and we are trying to lay off people and, at the same time, increase our revenue. So that is is a situation. Now we have heard messages about 400 smt lines over here no, not over there, because we are in France now, in Tunisia and now we came out with 200 to 240 SMT lines. And the most important thing is, we got a very valuable connection to the Tunisian electronics association, tunelec. We met with the president of TUNELEC and we met with the vice president of TUNELEC, both very, very nice people, and we are pretty sure that we can achieve a very good relation in the future, and both helping each other.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, to provide more data. The other thing that I was really interested in when I looked at it and you know I love to hear Eric practicing his accents and his German's very good, His French not so sure, but it's certainly getting there but a lot of French companies and I was curious of the timeline of the development of the industry in Tunisia, and was it the French that were there first? Because obviously now you have Zollner and you have other companies there, like Serco or a Swiss company. How's that development occurred?
Speaker 2To the large majority it's automotive electronics being done down here, and behind a lot of those has been Valeo as the OEM that has taught a lot of them and helped a lot of them set up, and a lot of the facilities that we see came from. You know Valeo people. You know we run into people who worked at Vallejo all over the place. Sagemcom, the other big French, is also very much involved. Some of the facilities we visited were ex-Sagemcom ones.
Speaker 3So yes to your question.
Speaker 2It really was the French, because of the colonial history what was it between 1881 and 1956? This was a French colony down in Tunisia, so very strong influences, matter of fact it's. You know, it's the second language in the country too, right? So so yeah, that is definitely the history of the industry here. Others are coming in and looking to benefit, interestingly the Chinese. We don't really see so much yet, but we'll see how that might pick up in the future.
Export-Only Business Dynamics in Tunisia
Speaker 1Yeah, but a very strong contingent from elsewhere in Europe. The other thing, eric, that you talked about in the first couple of podcasts and you both were explaining, was this idea of a export-only business. Idea of a export-only business and these export-only zones where it's almost as if the factory is a trade zone of its own. Just explain a little bit about how that works.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's an interesting dynamic down here. First of all, there's no distributors on the ground over here, right? So everything is exported in. When you get the designation of 100% export, that means that all the components you import in tax-free need to add some value add and you can export it tax-free as well. However, the way it comes in is interesting. It's primarily by boat, right by ships.
Speaker 2They leave the ports the main ones we hear about are Marseille and Genoa in Italy and they have most of the companies have a facility at that end where they have the distributors send the components there, they get consolidated into kits, they're put on a boat that's 24 hours, roughly over to Nice. They're unloaded but a customs officer lots the crate at the point of where the ship takes off. Then it gets delivered to the factory in Tunisia and a customs officer has to be there to unlock it. A few days later they will return. It goes in reverse the finished goods are stuck in the facility into a container. The container is locked by a customs officer there, shipped through the ports back up to whichever Genoa, marseille, wherever and it gets unlocked and then distributed there. So you know it sounds bureaucratic and cumbersome. It works. Nobody, it's not. It's really not a bottleneck. Most of them have. Some have their own authorized people. We discovered later in the week that it doesn't have to be in customs. There's a program by which you can certify some of your own employees. It takes two years of an audit to get there, but it can be accomplished and yeah, and so it's just the big point, and the issue became, though, not to go down a rabbit's hole. We'll speak about this later.
Speaker 2What about excess material, right, and we've heard some varying stories that we still need to tease out that. We heard from one company that you can only export up to one million per year of because that's considered trading, that's not considered value add, where we heard from several others that that is really not that big a deal, and, of course, some said that's not. We don't, you know, we don't even consider it, because we never have access right. So there's a variety of things going. The other slight variation on it is there is a you can ship 10% of what you produce to another company within Tunis, as long as that company is 100% export as well, and then they may integrate that into something and then export it, but there's not a market down here that they're selling into, really right All of this, to derive the tax benefit, to have no VAT, and you bring it in, you get it out.
Speaker 1Yeah, it works pretty much like a trade zone would work, but it's a dispersed model, so it works clever and it seems a pretty smart way of doing it. Dieter, I wanted to get into some of the findings, some of what you've learned in the last week, some of the things that perhaps you saw that you weren't expecting. Start with the facilities there and the industries they're serving and the kind of technology kind of level in terms of manufacturing capability.
Speaker 3Yeah, well to say so, not astonishingly, about 50% of the products manufactured in Tunisia are going into the automotive industry. Normally they are not going into the automotive industry direct, but they're going to a tier one who is then supplying the various automotive manufacturers the various automotive manufacturers. Interestingly and I hadn't thought about that in the past there's a lot of communication equipment being manufactured over here, and this is something which we have seen in a decline in mainland Europe and in the past. And I haven't thought about it where it went to. I thought it's all gone to Far East, but seemingly some of that has been going to Tunisia, and so communication has a valid market share over here.
Speaker 3In addition, industrial electronics, energy a little, not too much, but a little lighting as well, typical LED stuff with metal-backed PCBs. So that is what is being manufactured over here. In regards to the technology, we have seen factories where, first of all, the percentage of THC being assembled is higher than in Europe. So it looks as if there are more products going over here with THC, because that is still a lot of manual labor, and manual labor over here is very inexpensive, so they are transferring it over here. This means as well we have seen many wave soldering machines over here, manual assembly of the THC components and putting it over the wave. We have seen few selective soldering machines. We have seen many SMT lines lines and here again you have high volume machines in the big companies but you have, for example, I think we saw two or three companies were which were more specialized on low volume. Let's talk about 10 pieces to maximum 40 000 pieces pieces, and those companies are working on Micronic machines.
Speaker 3Because you can make the change much more rapid than with the big machines. So that is the majority, what we saw. Regarding added things like flying probe, like ICT, like functional tests, we have seen much of this. I'd say about 50% of the products manufactured over here are being box-built as well, so they do the final assembly of the product, some of it even being going into the final packaging and being shipped to the end customer right away. So nothing unusual compared to Europe yeah, pretty broad mix.
Speaker 1and, eric, I know when you were talking um in one of the podcasts about one particular facility, you said you'd seen x number of smt lines but a surprising number of uh of wave soldering lines in the same facility, which actually you know, is testament testament to what Dita's saying about THT. There, it seems the industry is on a bit of an upward trend there. The industry is tough everywhere at the moment, I think, so maybe that's not as rapid as it has been in previous years. What were you hearing, eric, about people's plans to grow and expand those facilities? And is it just volume that they're or capacity that they're looking to increase, or are they looking to make that step up in terms of capability as well?
Speaker 2Yeah, I would say that the primary focus is on growing and optimizing their existing capacity. You know we saw one currently has, I think, seven or eight SMT lines. They have room and want to grow to 12 within the facility. So I think the first piece is optimizing the space. We saw a lot where they had done some redesigning of the flow within the factory. So we see a lot of that, a lot of talk of lean initiatives and that type. You know that whole philosophy and how to optimize the flow. However, the other side is I mean, zulner is a great example. We saw the facility we were at the first day with. Zulner is currently a rented one because they've actually bought land and this year will break ground, and we saw the plans for that. They will be developing in four phases a whole business park down there within a larger industrial park, and then another one we saw who I won't name. They're actually probably going to be looking for land to grow and establish.
Speaker 2I think that they feel like they're outgrowing it and it's funny, where these facilities are located, land is getting more expensive too. That's the other trend behind some of this, and so you see a lot of within Tunis itself, rob, it's much more congested and your ability to grow is more limited. At a Tunis visiting where you're in a village, it's really the only business in town, right? And then they draw their employees from that base there. So they are probably the number one, you know, employer in those areas too. And there's certainly land, la Pratique, la Conique. When we saw them, they owned the land right next door, right, they could grow very easily, but it was right next to farmland too, right? So you can see a little of both, but the primary focus certainly is on optimizing existing capacity, yeah, optimizing and getting more productivity out of that.
Speaker 1And you mentioned them recruiting talent from nearby, which you know. If nearby is farmland, then they're probably recruiting people from that particular industry and that requires a lot of training. Dieter, we're constantly talking about talent, particularly in the rest of Europe and particularly in Western Europe, and the challenge of getting talent. Is Tunisia similar in terms of talent shortages? And is that because there isn't an established base or is it because the people that do get trained and are skilled are heading to europe for a bigger salary?
Speaker 3tunisia has an education system for the higher education, which is transferred in the majority, in regards to the structure, from france. You know, until the 20th of march 1956 tunisia was more or less a department of france, and on the 20th of march 1956, they gained independence. But even today they have two law systems. One is a Côte Civile, which is French, and then they have the Islamic right. So it's a mix. In addition, and in that education system, they have very, very professional universities and technical universities. A large EMS company who is having a factory over here in Tunisia, he said well, I can tell you that the education of the Tunisian engineers, for example, is similar, if not even better, than in France. So these people have a high qualification.
Speaker 3The problem is the unemployment rate. There is an official number, but there is probably as well an unofficial number. The official number ranges between 12 and 14 percent, but the unofficial number some people say might be higher than 20%, for the simple reason that people who have no job get no payment for it. So some people say well, we just stay home, we don't register as being unemployed. So there is a gray area over here of unemployed people. There is a gray area over here of unemployed people. Now again, yes, people go, but they do not go in the majority for getting a higher pay they get because they do want to get a job at all. You know, there is a certain problem with some studies like, for example, doctors, medical doctors. Last year, 6 000 medical doctors left tunisia, yeah, and in the majority they went to Europe and to Canada. So that is hurting the people. On average, the fluctuation, we were told, ranges about 7%.
Speaker 3But now we have to say, will these people go and never come back? No, we are pretty sure that this is not the case. See, tunisia is a country with a very, very old and long culture. Even the Romans have been in Tunisia more than 2,000 years ago and people have pride in that country. And if they could get a reasonably paid job in Tunisia, they will probably prefer that rather than going abroad.
Speaker 3And if they go abroad, they go abroad for a certain period of time, let's say maybe for 5, 10 or 15 years to collect sufficient money to then come back to Tunisia. That is, for example, something totally different if you have our nice refugees from Afghanistan and Syria. Those are countries with no culture. They're not coming back. People will not go back there. But Tunisia is different, and while we were doing these podcasts on LinkedIn, it was astonishing that we got 40 to 50 requests to connect from, in the majority, tunisian people either living in Tunisia at the moment having a job there, or from Tunisian people living abroad. So they're very interested and I assume as well is that they want to stay connected, they want to be informed what is happening in the industry so they can then make the right decision whether to go abroad or whether to return home. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3And the point is, yes, there is a huge difference in the labor cost. If we look at the direct labor, we are talking about a minimum salary of 208 euros a month. So, looking at Central Eastern Europe, which is an attractive area to manufacture, they can't compete with Tunisia. They can't compete with Tunisia. Tunisia is on a level where we think Tunisia can compete with the Far East. So it's definitely an alternative. When we talk about reshoring and where, with reengineering or whatsoever, we cannot manage to manufacture those products in your mainland, that we then can transfer them to Tunisia, which is much closer by and thus has a much lower environmental impact.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? And you know, eric, we know it's not just about labor costs. When you look at that and my um, you know. My next question was do you see that same desire to automate to mitigate talent shortages? Um, it's not required in terms of improving efficiency. If, if labor rates are sufficiently low, what is the demand for automation and digital transformation, like in Tunisia right now?
Speaker 2Yeah, and it's a good question. You're right, you have to balance out with the labor and the type of manufacturing, as Dito was indicating, the high amount of pin through hole. That can't be automated. If it, if you did automate, it would be awfully expensive, right? So, uh, because there I mean, we saw some really complex boards that would be very, very hard to to automate and put together the way that they're constructed. So, um, so, because talent shortages is not an issue, yeah, and again, the industry has primarily, you know, everything pre-reflow is pretty much automated, right, it's really the post-reflow thing and you could probably squeeze some efficiency out of that.
Speaker 2But you know, I don't really see that, especially at the volume levels, right, that stuff is just not at a high enough volume to justify the expense. However, they are upgrading equipment, right? So we do see that in an attempt to deal with smaller componentry that's going on with the whole miniaturization trend and also to be a lot faster. So, as Dita indicated, we saw some who might have and he mentioned, you know, one of my sponsors, micronic, who's. We saw a lot of their equipment here. But then, within those same factories, we might see the acquisition of the next SMT line is from a different brand that they perceive as being able to handle higher volume and work a lot faster.
Speaker 2So we certainly see that the digitalization I mean digitalization is everywhere. Right, I mean everything has become, although one factory did seem to have a lot more uh paper than than we thought when I asked him about that, they, they said. They said oh no, we're digitalized. Um, so they're definitely looking to upgrade equipment. That's going to be an ongoing thing. Uh, you see a lot more of the SBA IOI out there. Um, you know some of the facilities. Quite frankly, you know, because of the space constrictions in these smaller places, the line was in steady flow, so there's a desire to improve that and we see that happening as well. So, yeah, they're definitely going to be upgrading equipment as we move forward.
Speaker 1Yeah, Dieter. One of the other mega trends we're seeing is order books. Stuff's getting scheduled out. Orders are getting harder to find. What impact is that going to have on those genius factories that are owned by the European companies that perhaps are seeing a little bit of softening in demand, shall we say?
Speaker 3Well, yeah, we have seen a strong slowdown in Europe in the first quarter of 2024. Compared to the first quarter of 2023, we are talking at the moment about minus 10 to minus 12 percent, which is giving a lot of people a headache, but interestingly enough, we saw the same over here in Tunisia, because not everybody told us directly straight on that that is the case, but we were given numbers in regards to headcount reduction in 2024 between 10% and 15%. So they are, and they have this advantage. They have the advantage they do not only work with fixed employees. They can work with temporary employees, and those temporary employees they can lay off any day, which means, for example, you have 700 people in the factory, of which you only have 400 with a fixed employment. You have 300 temporary workers and you can give them a temporary contract up to four years. Yeah, and you can split that up. You can give them one contract for four years, or you can give them four contracts for one year yeah, only after the employee has worked in the company for four years in total, he needs to have a fixed contract. So what people then do? They are using this tool to immediately reduce labor costs, and that is a very smart tool which we don't have in Europe.
Speaker 3It's not that easy to lay off people in Europe and it's not that easy to say, well, we're going to have 30% to 40% of our employees on a temporary contract. That's not nobody would allow that Over here. It is possible and they are doing it. So they're reducing the amount of people immediately when they see the business slowing down, and that's what they see in 2024. And again, if I'm being asked well, how long is that going to last? It's difficult to say. My original predictions were it's going to pick up in the third quarter again, but it could last as well until the end of the year before it picks up.
Speaker 1Nobody knows that exactly.
Speaker 3No, it's hard to say.
Speaker 2DITA did guarantee to one company that business would be better by the end of the year. Well very kind of.
Speaker 1It's interesting to find out what that guarantee is backed up by. That's the most important thing, Right, exactly? Are you going to fill up that shortfall Before we get onto some broader stuff? I just wanted to know if there are any kind of big trends that you noticed there that perhaps we haven't discussed so far. Eric, you're nodding your head.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, I would flag a few things. The industry over here is both EMS and OEM. There are definitely OEMs manufacturing here with, you know, pretty much in the automotive side. One company who we won't mention we spoke to because we thought they were in EMS. They told us and responded very politely saying no, we don't do any EMS work. Everybody else we spoke to here said, oh no, they do EMS work and they started naming who they're doing EMS work for right. So, which is interesting, so we certainly have that OEM doing, you know, filling capacity with EMS work, but not wanting to really advertise that.
Speaker 2Two other things I touch one of the biggest challenge over here is logistics. Getting things around Tunisia and the drivers are just crazy I mean, it is an experience over here and getting through Tunisia can be very congested. So, without fail, the issue most people list as their number one challenge really has to do with logistics, and it's not really the customs piece, the unlock, it's the moving of parts. Some of them get it in from different distys and the materials arrive on different days, so you have to wait to get it all in order to get a complete kit.
Speaker 2And lastly, I would say the well, two issues. One is the role of women over here is very, very strong. We see that in society, we see that in the facilities too, and many men have told us that the women are harder workers and probably as well or better educated than the men over here. So they have a very strong role to play in the industry, and we saw many impressive women in our meetings. And then the whole push towards sustainability on a much larger issue is certainly know, is certainly a drive over here too. That makes sense, though right, they're. Most of them are European-based companies, and that's high on their mission statement.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's going to be part of their agenda, Dieter. Anything to add and a supplementary question what else do you see, and I know you've already been in Tunisia, but what else can we expect from elsewhere in North Africa? Is it a band across the top that we should be watching?
Speaker 3Well, it very much depends on the political structure of the countries in Northern Africa. The countries in Northern Africa, see, money goes where there is stability and if you want to have economic growth you need to have people investing in the countries. And people will not invest in countries where there is a dictatorship, where there is political uproar. We have seen that in many cases in countries where there is political instability, the countries don't grow fast. In solid, democratic structure you see a much higher economic growth and that is for the advantage of all the people in those countries.
Speaker 3So if we look to the right of Tunisia, libya, to be honest I can't tell you what is happening there and I wouldn't even dare to go there to travel there. Egypt, well, egypt being close to Gaza and even having those tunnels right to Gaza, I don't know whether that is not a big barrel of dynamite. I don't know whether that is not a big barrel of dynamite. To the left, then you have Algeria. You don't hear a lot about Algeria. Algeria is quite solid with their gas and oil explorations. So, other than that, there is not much industry. Morocco, yes, there is some electronics and electrical industry, but again, that is already today more expensive than Tunisia.
Speaker 3So, to say so, the lonely star in North Africa, in my opinion, is Tunisia, and they've had this revolution, I think, in 2011. And it looks as if the political situation is now relatively stable, and we talked with people. Most people said oh yes, we love our new president because he is not a member of one of the important Tunisian families, he is a university professor. We had critical voices about him as well, voices about him as well, so, but it looks as if this president is able to develop a stable environment and, with such a situation, the economy will continue to grow, and it might even grow faster than the European market, as I said before, because, being a low-cost country and the industry looking for low-cost alternatives, it might be that this will cause a higher growth rate in Tunisia than in main Europe.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, and that often is the case, and it's got, as you alluded to, it's got catching up to do, eric.
Speaker 2I just want to say to follow up on Dita. The other thing to remember is there is an election here at the end of this year, as well as has been in most countries A lot of elections going on in important countries.
Speaker 2I was going to say everywhere Half the world is voting yeah, and so Tunisia has theirs. I think they said around November, december this year, and I even asked who are the candidates and nobody could tell me. So somebody knows. I just don't know how that works over here, but that will be something else to watch over here.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely. And, eric, I wanted to know. I know you're, I know you're traveling through France at the moment. You find yourself in the, in the Champagne region, a very pleasant part of France. Where are you, where are you off to next and what is? What is this coming week look like for you?
Speaker 2Yeah, this will be, this will be fun. So, yes, we're in France today. We're actually, as soon as we're done with this, we'll pack up and continue driving. We have an interview Monday morning in France with the new CEO of a very large French company, discussing much more strategic getting to meet him and find out what the plans are for that I guess I could name it. We're going to meet with the new CEO of Yolan and we'll be talking about that in a podcast Monday.
Speaker 2Then we move back to Germany. Then Monday afternoon, 800-some kilometers, we drive across France back to Germany, more southern Germany We'll visit on Tuesday with two EMS companies there. Then we head up to towards the Ulm area. Actually, we see one more company Wednesday morning on our way to Ulm. We have a dinner that Wednesday night and then Dieter has his EMS forum that Informa organizes and runs in cooperation with IPC. That will be with over 100 primarily EMS executives from the German-speaking countries of Europe present. For that. Dieter is working diligently on a couple of his presentations and I hear tell that I'm giving a presentation there as well about Tunisia. So we'll see. Stay tuned on that. Then Friday we visit with one more company and Dita drops me at the Frankfurt airport and I fly home Saturday and Dita goes home and collapses in his own bed.
Speaker 1So there you go. Doesn't sound too bad. Doesn't sound too bad? And, dita Olm, you've flagged this event as being an EMS and PCB event, so a little bit of a change there. Tell me what the attendance looks like Eric's already mentioned more than 100 people and what you're expecting to be top of mind for these people. Obviously, order books are going to be one of the things they're going to want to talk about, but what else are you expecting them to want to talk about?
Speaker 3um, this week we will have number one a lot of interesting discussions, uh, this coming week at the ems and pcb forum. Um, we have 120 participants at the moment. I did did expect more, but it's as well a matter of the economy. You can really see that people are trying to save money wherever they can. Even so, my opinion they are saving money on the wrong things. They can invite me into their factory and I'm going to show them many other stupid things where they invest money that doesn't give them anything Over here.
Speaker 3Our EMS forum is not a marketing event. It is a training event, because we are training people with proper market data to make the right decisions, and that's why this year we are focusing on manufacturing alternatives. We're going to show Central Eastern Europe, we're going to show Tunisia as alternatives for the companies once they have achieved a certain size, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to open up their own facility. But see if we look at the PCB industry. The PCB industry has declined tremendously in Europe and is so small that it is alarming. And what did those companies do to survive? They started to not only manufacture and sell PCBs, they started trading of PCBs, and there might be a lot of cases where this could be an alternative for smaller companies who are faced with shrinking margins, that they do a certain percentage of the jobs themselves and do a certain percent by trading with Central Eastern European EMS companies or with Tunisian EMS companies and doing this achieve a better margin and more stable results. So that is what we hope we can share with the audience.
Speaker 3In addition, sadly enough, last week we had to report the death of Michael Gush, who has been doing the European PCB statistics for the last 22 years. He died last Friday and to say so it had been expected. He called me earlier this year and we did a transfer of his statistics on the 14th of June when I visited at his home and he gave me all the data files and I started working on those and since April I'm now doing the PCB statistics as well. Something, for example, which is interesting for one of the Tunisian companies as well OneTech Group.
Speaker 3Onetech Group does not only have the EMS business called Eleonor Tech, they have FUBA as well. Fuba used to be a german, the biggest german pcb manufacturer, before they filed for insolvency about 27 years ago. But they set up a factory together with the salami family in the 90s already and when far filed for insolvency, salami family bought the remaining shares and they are now the only Tunisian PCB manufacturer and they are supplying those PCBs as well to other EMS companies in Tunisia. So very interesting, and I will probably be able in a couple of months to tell you more. I have to dig into that data again. I lost it somehow out of sight 22 years ago.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, I think it's really interesting. And two things I'd like to comment on from there. One is that Michael was a very impressive man, a good speaker, someone who cared a huge amount about the industry, a gentleman and very good at the data he produced, and I'm glad to hear that you'll be taking ongoing care of that data. And the second one is that I would say to nobody should save money by not going to cd device um, because he will charge you more to come to your factory and tell you that you're stupid than than uh, than than in a conference. I think that's uh, that's really important. Guys, thank you so much for your time, thank you so much for doing these tours. Every time you do one, they get better and better. It seems that you guys work harder and harder every time. I'll give you both a quick chance to mention your sponsors before we wrap up, but you and they have my sincere thanks. Dieter, who's sponsoring you on this uh, on this particular occasion?
EMS Now Tour Sponsor Appreciation
Speaker 3I can only say I try to work, continue working as long as possible, and I have to thank ipc for the support they're giving me every day, and I thank Eric as well for being sitting next to me in the car every day trying to make me speed, keeping you awake. By the way, I already got my first speeding ticket yesterday. So the EMS Now and informa tour is always exciting and it's a lot of work. It's some fun as well and if it continues away today in the first week I'm gonna lose more weight there you go.
Speaker 1Well, that's never a bad thing, eric final words.
Speaker 2Yeah, finally, let me just tip my hat to my sponsors, being kojiscan luminovo, my chronic and trusted parts. We thank you. Without their support, I could not doubt you'd be doing this and reporting to the industry, as we are. So much gratitude to them. Give them a consideration if you ever cross their paths, please.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I'll be putting links to all those sponsored companies in the show notes. Guys, thank you so much for your time. I look forward to speaking to you when you're back in Texas Eric and you've got the second week under your belt and, dita, perhaps we can chat about what's on people's minds and on this week. But have a wonderful week, have a great event and we'll chat again soon, thank you, thank you very much. Thank you very much.