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LACROIX: EMS Company of the Year 2022
23 January 2023
LACROIX Electronics
LACROIX is honored to be named 2022 EMS Company of the Year by Circuits Assembly magazine. The magazine is a publication of the Printed Circuit Engineering Association (PCEA) which interacts with more than 100,000 electronics-affiliated professionals and executives worldwide. Circuits Assembly regularly covers electronics manufacturing services (EMS) topics at both a business and technical level.
The selection of LACROIX
Several factors contributed to the selection of LACROIX, including:
- Its commitment to environmental sustainability
- Innovative use of automation to ensure cost competitive manufacturing solutions in France and the US, in addition to nearshore/offshore solutions in lower-cost labor markets
- Superior operational metrics
- Achievement of the highest overall score in the 2022 Circuits Assembly Service Excellence Award for EMS companies with revenues of over US $500 million.
The evaluation process included a virtual tour of Symbiose, the newest facility of LACROIX in France as well as a review of its publicly available financial reports and metrics. LACROIX is the second French company to be recognized as EMS Company of the Year.
An industrial innovation focused plant
During the virtual tour of the French facility of LACROIX, Stephane Klajzyngier, president, LACROIX North America highlighted the key element that helps differentiate the LACROIX approach to the services it provides. He added that while not all products that LACROIX build fit that criteria, the company will walk away from opportunities to build products that are bad for the environment.
Claude Bourget, General Manager of the French facility of LACROIX discussed the symbiotic relationship among the facility, its workers and the surrounding facility.
The industry-leading operational metrics of LACROIX are driven in part by creative automation solutions. While some solutions such as the robot-managed Exotec Skypod inventory storage system, are unique to the French facility, cobots assisting production operators, automated inventory cycle counting systems and evolving augmented reality for hand assembly operations are deployed in other facilities, as well.
The Covid health crisis demonstrated the need within France to encourage domestic manufacturing. The Mauges Communauté near our facility values the concept of a living environment where workers have good quality of life and short commutes between home and the factory. We see our activities as interconnected. Forging close links between rural areas and high technology, as exemplified by the Symbiose project, promotes the relocation of French industry and expansion of employment opportunities for workers living in those communities. Within the factory we also have a goal of social innovation in workspace design, availability of natural light and access to green space, to provide our workers with good workplace quality of life.”
The team at the French facility also highlighted collaborative efforts with competitors in the WeNetwork cluster to develop solutions for production that could be shared with the industry, making it more viable for equipment suppliers to support development of specialized production equipment. One example was an automated insertion machine for odd-form through-hole parts and another example involved AGVs for automated material transport.
Exterior view of Symbiose plant located in Beaupréau-en-Mauges, France
High customer satisfaction ratings
The success of LACROIX in maintaining high customer satisfaction ratings was also a factor in the EMS Company of the Year award. In Nov. 2022, LACROIX won the Highest Overall Customer Rating award for EMS Providers with Revenues of Over $500 million at the Circuits Assembly Service Excellence Awards, presented at the Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTAI) Conference and Expo.
Customers in the North American facilities of LACROIX were surveyed and compared against the customer satisfaction scores of similarly sized competitors. LACROIX had the highest combined scores over the seven categories surveyed which included value for price, manufacturing quality, technology, flexibility, responsiveness, dependability/timely delivery and overall satisfaction.
That win was significant for two reasons. First, it highlighted that post-acquisition, customers were still highly satisfied with the LACROIX business model. Second, since LACROIX total revenues grew significantly with its acquisition of Firstronic, it was the first time competing in the largest EMS size category and LACROIX outperformed companies with a long-standing track record of high scores in this competition.
LACROIX was featured in a cover story article in Circuits Assembly’s January 2023 issue that highlights these points of differentiation in more detail.
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