There are increasing numbers of EMS providers who have realized the benefits of getting in touch with the client as early as possible in the product life cycle, even in the design stage. This is not just for the EMS providers to tie the customers up but also, especially for the European EMS firms, to be able to offer cost-effective manufacturing solutions that actually are competitive to the lower wage manufacturing by simplifying, smoothening and streamlining their production.

Implementation of the RoHS directive has even taken the OEM-EMS cooperation to another level. "It is a lot easier today, Anders Söderbärg at NOTE Centre of Excellence told the Swedish electronics journal Elektronik i Norden. "We are able to communicate in a totally different way to the customers and we have a much wider contact surface to our customers, he adds.

"In U.K. the entire EMS model is about to change, Jaltek Systems Director of Technology told Elektronik i Norden. "The contact between EMS provider and product owner is getting much more dense between customer and EMS provider and we are participating more and more in the customers design work. These changes are specially shown on the consumer market", he told Elektronik I Norden.

"Here I think U.K. is ahead of the Nordic", International Business Manager at NOTE, Martin Linder told Elektronik i Norden. "It is more common in U.K. than in the Nordic that the EMS providers are offering even more services such as design", Martin Linder told Elektronik i Norden.

The Nordic is also developing in the same direction. "It is already on-going. More and more customers want to see "one stop shopping". However the ODM model does not seem to fit in the Nordic or in the rest of Europe. The customers want to keep control of their own designs, Martin Linder told Elektronik i Norden.