Empowered with the capability to improve year on year, Jabil is ready to take on more challenges

Jabil’s unique combination of global expertise, ingenuity, analytics and financial performance has contributed to the success of the world’s most well known brands, many of whom are Jabil’s customers. It helps companies design, build and take their products to market quickly, affordably and efficiently

By Srabani Sen

Friday, March 15, 2013: A worldwide provider of electronics manufacturing services, Jabil Circuit Pvt Ltd designs and manufactures electronic circuit boards for major OEMs in a diverse group of industries including instrumentation, automobiles, computing, storage, consumer products, networking and telecommunications.

Headquartered in St Petersburg, Florida, and operating in 25 countries, Jabil was founded in 1966 by William E Morean and James Golden in Detroit, Michigan. It started its operations from Morean’s garage. The name of the company is composed from the first names of the founders—James and Bill. Even after James Golden’s exit from the organisation during its infancy, Jabil grew and its operations shifted into a small facility in Michigan in 1967. Morean’s son, William D Morean, joined the enterprise in 1977, and was responsible for a shift in Jabil’s operations. The changes he brought about in operations, as well as sales and marketing strategies, transformed Jabil into an EMS company.

Currently, Jabil operates out of 60 sites in 27 countries, including India. Since going public, Jabil has been cited as “…one of five companies to have grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 25 per cent or higher.” According to CEO, Tim Main, “The focus of the company in terms of forward looking growth is diversified manufacturing services.” Jabil has branched out into several growth industries such as aerospace, defence, medical, healthcare/life sciences, clean technologies, solar and after-market services.

Its journey in India
Jabil began its operations in India in 2003 with the acquisition of the Philips CTV facility in Pune. At the time, Jabil Circuit India Pvt Ltd had only one customer in the country. It later relocated to its ‘green’ facility in Ranjangaon, Pune, in an effort to diversify its customer base.

Along the way, Jabil also acquired Celetronix India Pvt Ltd, which gave it additional facilities and customers in the country. Jabil also increased its after-market services capabilities in India through the acquisition of Telmar Network Technologies in 2011.

Jabil’s unique combination of global expertise, ingenuity, analytics and financial performance has contributed to the success of the world’s most well-known brands, many of whom are Jabil’s customers. Jabil helps companies design, build and take their products to market quickly, affordably and efficiently. More than that, Jabil helps customers design their supply chains to be agile, economical and effective even in uncertain times, leading to long-term success. Customised engagement models provide customers with a single point-of-contact who is empowered to tap into global resources.

Its unique operating principles
Through the ups and downs of the EMS market in India, Jabil was able to maintain its growth due to its strategic operating principles and its well developed manufacturing best practices. Jabil’s guiding principles act as its compass, direct its daily actions, and keep it moving in the right direction, claims the company. Its values are based on a foundation of experienced people; its business mission is to deliver exceptional customer service, and the goal of its financial actions is to increase shareholder value. These principles are the foundation of Jabil’s strong culture and are the reason for its success over the years.

One of Jabil’s success mantras is employing lean manufacturing principles in its facilities. This has ensured the company’s viability and helped it in cost cutting. “Through lean manufacturing, we have achieved two vital goals—improved quality and, at the same time, cut production and operations costs. Anything that does not add value to the final product or service is eliminated, and this is a trend that is strong in Jabil.

Adoption of the lean manufacturing programme also helped Jabil to become more competitive. Its successful lean efforts have significantly impacted the entire organisation’s performance as in-process cycle times and lead times dropped, inventory shrinked and quality enhanced.

After detecting the areas where wastage is taking place, the company adopted Kaizen, a manufacturing concept pioneered in Japan. Every employee is motivated to eliminate non-value-adding activities, and each contribution is given importance. Lean Six Sigma and Kaizen should not be confined to training just a few employees who evolve to become Black Belts. Every employee should contribute to this initiative, feels the company. The top management is also involved in this process and plays the role of facilitators by organising training sessions. The company also partners with external knowledge partners for gaining expertise on lean methods. This is shared with other employees to build competency and capability. Then their performance is measured through value stream mapping transformation.

The company believes that it should also recognise the contributions of the employees and reward them. Through a powerful communication mechanism, Jabil has successfully made every employee aware of lean Six Sigma and its benefits. So, the whole organisation is involved in the journey of continuous improvement.

Starting this journey in 2009, Jabil first focused on transforming its staff members as the products are built by them. Once this was accomplished, the firm shifted its focus to cultural transformation in 2010. After the governance process and the online learning model was set, it became mandatory for operational heads and managers to be Six Sigma certified. In 2011, Jabil focused on tool transformation by integrating lean and Six Sigma concepts. None of the tools will be successful if the people are not capable of using the right tool at the right time, and if the organisational culture is not supportive. So employee transformation, cultural transformation and tool transformation are the key aspects for the success of lean Six Sigma, which in turn, led to the transformation of the company.

Jabil does regular competitive assessments that quantify where improvements are needed most. It creates and communicates a shared need in order to make sure everybody understands why lean Six Sigma is necessary. It makes sure everyone in the organisation is able to derive a personal benefit in the company’s undertakings. Communication is one of the key aspects of this endeavour.

Within three years of implementing lean Six Sigma, Jabil has derived huge benefits with respect to its performance indicators and employee development. It has achieved 100 per cent customer satisfaction.

Another success mantra of Jabil has been its strategy to be customer focused. Today, products are manufactured keeping the customers in mind. End users demand more flexibility, lower costs, 100 per cent on-time delivery and 100 per cent quality products and services. Hence, Jabil pays more attention on the quality of its products and faster deliveries. In today’s business model, it has no other option but to reduce the cost of the product by increasing value-added activities and eliminating non-value-added activities.

The business model and infrastructure
Jabil engages in highly complex large scale system requirements, as well as lower mix products as it caters to different industries across the globe. It has an industry-specific design team for each of the industries it supplies to. The company uses value engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and software engineering to design products for its clients.

With over 51,096 sq m (550,000 sq ft) of production space, Jabil is one of the leading manufacturers of India with state-of-art facilities. Its Pune site includes a world class manufacturing plant, equipped with electrostatic discharge (ESD) compliance flooring, an environmental control shop floor, and equipment from the globally approved vendor list (AVL), which has gone through a robust process of evaluation and qualification, leading to consistent delivery of high quality products.

In order to exceed its customers’ demands, Jabil consistently invests in world class equipment. Its facilities are equipped with SMT placement, reflow, automated optical inspection, wave soldering, in-circuit test, functional verification test systems and various customer level test equipment. Its facilities are also capable of designing tests as per the customers’ specifications.

The hurdles it crossed
Originally, Jabil faced some major hurdles in establishing a supportive infrastructure in India to grow in the manufacturing industry here. It needed a solid supplier base as well as employees with extensive skillsets. Fortunately, Jabil has a well developed footprint in the Americas, Asia and Europe, complete with a robust supply chain and talent pool, from where it gets guidance about best practices. As is the case in all Jabil locations, in India also it hired the best and brightest employees so that we can offer world class manufacturing to some of the most well known brands.

Achievements, strengths and weaknesses
Jabil’s India sites now have a double digit customer base and consistently receive best-in-class feedback, quarter after quarter. Recently, Jabil received the ELCINA-EFY award for excellence in exports. It has also received an award from the Maharashtra government for best IT hardware manufacturer in the state, which recognises Jabil as a leader in the Indian electronics industry, responsible for taking it to the next level.

Jabil’s culture of continuous improvement is how the company meets and exceeds the expectations of its customers, consolidating the company’s position in the Indian electronics industry. However, behind its continuous improvement endeavours are its employees. Jabil’s employees act with high integrity and are respectful to each other. Its employees are highly skilled in a wide range of trades, from industrial manufacturing to electronics manufacturing and are prepared to take on any task with efficiency and skill.

Business strategy

Jabil’s high velocity business focuses on getting business ideas from ‘concept to market’ in the quickest time possible. The company focuses on faster time to market by providing businesses with product design, materials technology, validation and supply chain management, as well as after market services.

Jabil has strategically structured its supply chain to reduce risks. It remains cost-competitive within the market while providing customers with an added benefit—supply chain risk mitigation. The company maintains a sophisticated and comprehensive supply chain tracking system and supplier database, allowing for a thorough supply chain evaluation. It is during the supply chain evaluation that supply chain issues are quickly identified and adjustments made.

Year of establishment

Electronics Bazaar, South Asia’s No.1 Electronics B2B magazine