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
Hanwha's Tech Innovations and Global Electronics Insights with Jonny Nichols
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Curious about how Hanwha transformed from a Samsung acquisition to an innovator in technology? Join me as Jonny Nichols, VP of Marketing for North America, shares the brand's journey, offering insights into their strategic innovations and market growth. We chat about the challenges within the reshoring trend, and the need to optimize for floor space and performance for North American assemblers. We also explore the groundbreaking HMD2 system that revolutionizes dual product assembly in a compact line. This episode shows how Hanwha's dedication to excellence and innovation has positioned them as a leader in the industry.
Switching gears, we explore the global electronics market, emphasizing the critical importance of understanding and adapting to cultural differences. We also focus on the strategic initiatives by Hanwha that keep them at the forefront of the market.
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.
Hello, I'm Philip Stoden. I'm here at SMTA Guadalajara 2024, and I am on the Hamwa booth with Johnny. Johnny, great to meet you.
Speaker 2Thank you so much for your time. Pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 1I think what's really interesting about Hamwa is people are really yet to understand the brand. They're aware of the acquisition from Samsung and what happened there, but they don't really understand where Hamwa came from. So give me a bit of backstory, give me a bit of scale, give me a bit of understanding.
Speaker 2Okay, you got it. So, when you look at the differences between, say, samsung and Hanwha, I'm an ex-Samsung employee. Okay, we're a Korean company. We've been making technology since 1989 as far as S&T equipment, robotics and things like that. Right, when we became Hanoi in 2017, or 2016, 2017, we started to work with the Hanoi Aerospace Group. We actually report to them. So we, in effect, are an aerospace company. So we build engines for GE, pratt, whitney, rolls-royce, we provide components to those guys, so there's a lot of quality initiatives that goes into aircraft or aerospace production right that you see carried over.
Speaker 2Right, exactly, so the DNA carries that over. When you look at the sizes of the company, the Samsung brand is a more recognized brand, but Hanwha is still a very important brand and a very significant brand too. When you look at the sizes ratios, samsung, you know you're a $200 billion a year company, whereas Hanwha is a $60 to $80 billion a year company.
Speaker 2Still very very very, very sizable 60,000 employees worldwide versus, you know, samsung being about 200,000 employees, right. So when you look at that, we're very well. We're a very diversified company, very secure company. We're growing significantly. Over the last few years We've increased our base as far as where we're at in North America quite a bit, right and I say quite a bit because it's hard to really tell you what percentage is in terms of market share but market share is growing.
Speaker 1And the market is changing right now.
Speaker 2So when you look at some of the dynamic changes in the North American marketplace, with a lot of offshoring that used to be going on is now coming back, so reshoring is very much alive and well over here, and when you look at reshoring you've got to ask yourself, well, what kind of products are needed, what kind of machinery is needed to really make North American assemblers more profitable or at least more globally? Competitive than before, right so this is my segue into talking about some of the new innovative features that we have right.
Speaker 1I think what's really interesting, though, you mentioned that innovation. I just wanted to step in there. It's about making them more competitive, but it's also about dealing with their talent issues. If they can't get more people, you need to provide them with automation. That means less people can crank through more PCBAs.
Speaker 2Well, equally important, you need to be looking at things like floor space performance. How do you multiply your profitability in the given floor space? That is what you have. You can't just all of a sudden decide to build a factory tomorrow. The window of time or opportunity, so to speak, to be globally competitive now it's not here tomorrow. You got to do it right now, and I think that's where you look at some of the innovative features that Hanwha offers today, like what we call HMD2.
Speaker 2That's a line that does two different products simultaneously, not just in the pick and place the line, and there is no other maker on the planet that has a line solution that is narrower and shorter than Hanwha as far as that goes. So when you start looking at who's best in class, well, how do you define best in class? You have to look at what best in class is today, and I think if you can provide innovative technology that is built at the highest quality levels, that can give somebody a floor space performance factor that's more profitable than somebody else, competitively speaking, people have choices within Hanwha that they didn't have in the past, even under Samsung, and this is a big difference between the orange company and the blue company. You know the blue oval versus the orange.
Speaker 1Hanwha, right it's really interesting, johnny, and that innovation that you talk about really speaks to what Hanwha have done. They haven't just taken a slightly tired brand and run with it, they've reinvented, they've innovated, they've promoted, they've marketed. You've really thought about how to be a really important new brand in the market, but still with that legacy of good technology, right you know, the trick is not to be a me too company.
Speaker 2You want to be a me first company and that's where innovation is. And I think innovation is really kind of qualified by knowing what the cutting edge really is. How do you define what leading edge or cutting edge technology is? And this is where I can tell you as a guy who's worked for the other guys the blue team versus the orange team. Today there is quite a bit more investment and the Hanwha R&D people are significantly more tuned in to the PCB assemblers in North America today than we've ever been over here, and I think testament to that fact is where we're at with our HMD2 systems.
Speaker 2Now, other things that you guys may have talked about a little bit earlier were some of the odd form capabilities A lot of the companies over here today that are doing PCB assembly. They want to have the ability not just to be more profitable or have a better floor space, performance, dynamic they have to be doing a wider range of things than they've ever been able to do before. So, with respect to the people dynamic trying to cut head count or reassign people to do other things that are more efficient you don't necessarily want to. You know you don't want to necessarily lose people per se, but if you can take six, people.
Speaker 2right now, you want to scale with the people you've got Well if you have five people stuffing aboard because the automation didn't have the capability of handling it before. Today's automation, especially what we have here right behind you from Henwa, has the ability to eliminate some of the headcount and be adapted to some of those applications like that.
Speaker 1And they can be redeployed elsewhere. Well, it can. Well, it can be adapted to some of those applications like that and they can be redeployed elsewhere that's the opportunity to go to the business.
Speaker 2Well, it can. And when you look at how you can really add on value with Hanwha propositions and things like that, If you have the opportunity to invest in an HMD2, different product dual lane for maximizing the force-based performance, and then you have the added benefit of buying into some of the odd form machines that we have to do the bigger, the taller, the heavier parts and things like that to build more value into that HMD2 investment. Kenwa has all of that today and that's what we're doing. We're continuing to look at how do we build value, not just in the pick and place product line, but how do we extend that out to the entire line and make it harmonized, make it shorter, make it narrower, so that investors in the technology partners of ours, our customers, have a technology that can give them a competitive edge that they've never had before.
Speaker 1Yeah, and they're getting value out of their headcount, they're getting value out of their full space, they're getting value out of their capital acquisition. Absolutely Just want to switch gear momentarily and talk a little bit about the market. It's kind of a strange hiatus time. At the moment. We have the US election. I don't know whether you watched the debate the other evening. We won't get into politics, but that and potential for a couple of rate cuts from the Fed should see a pickup in the market towards the end of the year and a kick on in 2025. You obviously have a long-term strategy, but what do you see in the short and medium term?
Speaker 2I see in the short term, you're going to have a little bit of a holdback of investment right now, which we see every four years in the United States. This is not a surprise to us, we anticipated it.
Speaker 2And guess what it's going to happen again in four years. It'll always play out that way. When you look at potential tax implications or benefits going forward with whoever the new administration is, and you hope that it plays favorably for economic growth and things like that right, I think 2025 will be a very good year for the PCB assembly operations. I'm hopeful of that, and there's a lot of variables there. I can't predict the future None of us can but I think when you look at the ability to invest in technology so you can look at buying technology to do, you can hedge against. Maybe the economic policies aren't quite what you were hoping they could be. You can use that to hedge against that. Or you can look at trying to be more globally competitive than you've ever been.
Speaker 1And you can use the equipment to do that too, Right, you can.
Speaker 2But the other thing is, you have people in the United States, assemblers in the United States. But the other thing is, you know, you have people in the United States, assemblers in the United States, that are looking at investing in other areas of North America too, Mexico being one of them. Canada is another territory that we have, right, and there's a lot of different cultural differences between the east, the west and all this and that. But I think when you start, when you boil it down, in the end whether you're a tier one assembler or an OEM or an EMS company or a tier five right, Everybody has the same goal in mind.
Speaker 2We want to build the highest quality product. We want to build it efficiently. It doesn't necessarily mean as fast as possible, you just need to make sure it's accurate. So I think what North America is delivering today in the form of PCB assembly I think our quality is second to nobody's and I think the opportunity now to make investments competitive investments, meaning the price of automation is at a level right now versus what capability is in that automation it's exceptionally competitive, more so than ever, and there's no hold back or stalling from the OEM side to continue to develop and evolving this technology.
Speaker 2So I think the benefit, potential future benefit of people in 2025, we are where we are in 2024, okay, I think we're going to see a little bit of a wait and see until we get through to the elections and stuff like that, right, and things are going to start to kick back up.
International Outlook on Electronics Industry
Speaker 2You'll see a peak in Q1. It'll flatten out a little bit in the summertime and then it'll peak again at the end of the year and I hope by this time next year when we have another conversation, we'll all be saying look, it happened, it played out great. We've sold a lot of this stuff and everybody's happy.
Speaker 1Well, I'm inclined to agree with you, johnny. A couple of things I take from there. You talk about the cultural differences. It's great to see you've invested in picking up the right kind of stuff to cover those cultural differences so you can be local in every market and still be a great global player. Yes, sir, and when you look at the underlying trend in the electronics industry, it's not going away.
Speaker 2Electronics isn't going away.
Speaker 1No, not at all, and it's becoming more ubiquitous in everything we do. Very much so Looking good for the future. Love what you're doing here. Thanks for giving this update. It's really good to understand what Hamwell's all about.
Speaker 2Yep, great to meet you.