Graham W. Norman, Managing Director, EVS International

2013 will of course be a challenging year for everyone in terms equipment investments as most EMS providers and ODMs will have surplus capacity and transfer equipment within sites will happen more rapidly.

In 2013 electronic products will continue to grow in the trend of mobility solutions linking people around the world in a single platform, be it on a smart phone, smart TV, and soon a smart car. Electronics is already a part of our daily life from the moment we wake up (checking our messages on our smart phone) until we go to bed (setting an alarm on mobile devices).

In the means of inspection, automated vision inspection and X-ray for areas not seen by the naked eye will be a "must have" as demands for product quality in Chinese made goods as they will soon compete with low-cost producing countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and other third world countries. Chinese made products will soon adopt a 5 and 10 year warranty reliability strategy to compete with Japanese, Korean and the west branded products.

In view of these trends, our company is strategically positioned in the electronics hub of South East Asia and has the advantage of human resources at a reasonable controlled cost as well as human talents and innovative Intellectual Property advancement.

In the decade beyond 2010 we expect manufacturing to return back to its original region, i.e. South America producing for North America, China producing for China, SE Asia producing for Middle East and other Asian sites, and Eastern Europe for Europe.

With this
trend coming into reality we see manufacturing sites in Asia as our priority market with our presence of R&D, manufacturing and people present in this ideal place giving us a competitive edge. In terms of product lines, we aspire to have to a complete 3D vision inspection solution in the very near future.