Q&A with representatives from the<br>partnering PartnerTech and 3CEMS

Q: What are the main objectives for the cooperation between PartnerTech and 3CEMS? What’s in it for PartnerTech and what’s in it for 3CEMS? A: Main objectives for the cooperation are Joint activities in strategic purchasing and strong buyer power. Greater sharing of technology in order to improve know-how and expertise Improved offer to customers and a wider footprint in both Asia and Europe. Q: In terms of manufacturing, what specific complements are added to each others manufacturing capacity or capability through this cooperation? A: The two companies complement each other within contract manufacturing. 3CEMS has a wide expertise in PCB and PCBA manufacturing and offers high volume production in this field. This complements PartnerTech’s offer to European based customers and adds both capacity and capability in electronic manufacturing. PartnerTech’s strong presence in Europe and knowledge within electronics, mechanics and system integration is on the other hand important for 3CEMS as it gives a wider knowledge base and proximity to customers in Europe. With the cooperation both companies gain a wider footprint, increased buying power as well as an improved service to customers both in terms of manufacturing but also in terms of logistics, distribution and after sales services. Q: PartnerTech has earlier communicated to the market that the company wants to add its concept, the company has established in Sweden, even on to new markets as well. Is this some kind of action to establish a customer base in Taiwan for PartnerTech? A: The main part of PartnerTech’s customers is based in Europe, but act globally. This means that they need local support as well as the possibility to access low-cost production and logistics services. The cooperation with 3CEMS since six years and PartnerTech’s own unit in China mean that we can offer this service to our customers. The fact that we have both decided to make the cooperation stronger and tighter results in better service to all our customers. Q: In this extended cooperation PartnerTech and 3CEMS are supposed to strengthen its purchasing departments. How exactly is this cooperation supposed to strengthen both companies in this area? Is it mainly in terms of getting volume benefits or is the purchasing cooperation mainly focussed on strategic issues like choosing the right components or setting up major data handling systems to monitor several important parameters in the purchasing process? A: We will cooperate in several ways to further improve our leverage towards global suppliers, but also improve our footprint towards local Asian suppliers. We will increase the joint buying power, but we will also focus on strategic issues such as evaluation of suppliers and a joint component/supplier database. Q: Will the local suppliers still be important for PartnerTech or will the supplier base be shrunk down to just a few suppliers? A: Local suppliers are still important. Our Sourcing organization (Strategic Purchasing) is constantly working on optimizing our supply base including both local as well as global suppliers. We have an ongoing project to narrow the list of preferred supplier to get economy of scale and the benefits from all our units. In this work there are a number of issues to take into account such as customer demands, quality, price etc. Q: Do PartnerTech or 3CEMS have any specific idea about what’s best - purchasing from distributors or directly from the component manufacturer? A: As long as our distributors can maintain their competitiveness towards the component industry we prefer to use their services including logistics, warehousing and technical support.