What features do our services have that don't fit the EMS category? Before we can answer this, we first need to identify what EMS services are like in general.

EMS stands for Electronic Manufacturing Service and simply describes the contracting of electronics manufacturing. An EMS contractor is an outsourcer of manufacturing processes, and the reason that EMS is important to clients is because they can reduce investment risks on production equipment by making use of the large-scale production facilities and flexible production line management available through EMS. The client's attitude is that "although we can manufacture it ourselves, from an operational efficiency perspective it's better to outsource," and traditionally they have provided contractors with the design drawings and parts for the product being commissione.

However, the approach taken by Advanet has been different. While calling ourselves an EMS company, we have consistently made high quality service proposals to our clients. This is simply because we are capable of offering complete outsourcing services ranging from upstream manufacturing processes such as development and design to trial manufacturing, procurement, mass production, testing and inspection. What particularly sets us apart from other EMS companies are our development and design capabilities.

Our complete range of outsourcing services includes the upstream processes for electronics products manufacturing, which range from design to development, and we provide these in addition to the manufacturing process. The word EdMS allows us to add the value of these "d" processes to EMS, providing a proper description of our current range of services. Starting now, Advanet will adopt the slogan "EdMS Company."

We often hear people calling us a "standard products vendor." Certainly, the Advanet advertisements that you find in magazines and on the Internet feature standard products such as "CompactPCI boards with up-to-date CPUs," but in reality, 70 percent of our sales come from custom-made products, which are tailored exactly to individual customer needs. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide details of the high quality design and development capabilities that we have cultivated over the years, as they may touch on the trade secrets of our clients. This poses a real dilemma when we want to attract attention to our development and design capabilities.

However, we believe that we are grappling with this sort of dilemma because we are experiencing a further-growth transition. Our objective is to provide even higher-order services. The essence of this will first become apparent when we develop our whole service flow - from the receipt of orders to delivery and maintenance - along the vertical axis, and develop our wide range of technological capabilities - from hardware to software - along the horizontal axis. In other words, improving the consistency of our processes (vertical axis) and widening the range of our technological capabilities (horizontal axis) will enable us to become a manufacturing provider with unlimited potential who provides more than just standard or customized products

Our business has evolved from EMS to EdMS, and in the future, it will probably take on another new form as we grow and develop. We have not yet found a word to define the higher-level services which will result from this, but we firmly believe that it will become apparent while we are giving serious consideration to the form these services should take in order to increase our clients' level of satisfaction.