Quad: Capable of competing with the Chinese on costings!

From doing mere job works, Quad Electronics Solutions Pvt Ltd underwent three stages of evolution to emerge as a product lifecycle management company. As the name indicates, Quad refers to the four services—design, manufacturing, fulfilment and after market services. With a turnover of Rs 1050 million, the company is ranked among the leading EMS companies in India

By Richa Chakravarty

Monday, April 15, 2013: Established as Ramnish Electronics in 1997, the company started its journey as a simple job works firm out of a 650.32 sq m space with predominantly manual operations. With limited infrastructure and resources, the company was confined to doing assembly work. In 2004, when Ramnish Electronics was acquired by a global tier I EMS giant based out of Canada, it moved into a 4645.2 sq m facility (in 2005). This was its turning point that took the company to the next level, and it was soon recognised as one among the top EMS companies in India.

However, in 2009, there was a management buy-back and after the exit of its foreign holding company, Ramnish Electronics was re-christened Quad Electronics—an Indian company with a global DNA. Led by Raminder Soin, chairman and managing director, the company is into product lifecycle management (PLM), offering end-to-end value chain solutions to tier I OEMs.

Evolution as a PLM company

In its 15 years of experience in the electronics industry, the company has gone through three levels of evolution. Post re-christening as Quad, the company consciously made an effort to move away from being a pure-play mass manufacturer, and started to add more value to its business offerings by expanding its bouquet of services to include fulfilment and after market services. These enhanced service offerings were an integral part of its core activities. The company now heavily focuses on designing activities. Equipped with state-of-the-art surface mount lines, it has a manufacturing unit at Medchal, Hyderabad and two fulfilment facilities at Jeedimetla, Hyderabad. “It was in 2005 that the company acquired its global DNA. We moved to a much bigger space with new machines, including new SMT lines. Automation was the major change in terms of adding capabilities. Now, we are in charge of the complete supply chain, right from sourcing to making the complete end product,” informs Raminder Soin.

Leveraging its unique selling proposition

Subsequent to the exit of the Canadian company from India, Quad went through a complete rebranding phase. Also, to add to its credit, Quad was the only company still in operation after the Canadian company consolidated its business from seven locations across the globe. Proving the theory of ‘survival of the fittest’, Quad leveraged its USP of offering global processes with local delivery. Says Raminder Soin, “Post the exit of the Canadian company from the venture, we continued to practice the systems and processes that we inherited from them, and in fact further built-up on them. Our operational philosophies are Lean, Six Sigma and Kaizen practices—all of which are currently the guiding principles in the company and are continuously being instilled in the employees. In business, quality, cost and delivery matters, and the quality of our work never suffered. So our customers never faced any problems.”

With a team of over 65 engineers, Quad has been providing services to some of the most prominent OEMs in the industry, offering solutions to both domestic (through its domestic tariff area) and export-oriented (through its set-up at the electronics hardware technology park–SEZ) customers.

Fulfilling crucial customer requirements like cost control, reduced lead times and product reliability has been possible because of its effective supply chain management process, backward integration measures and network secured devices. Playing to its strength, Quad has not only been able to retain its customers but has also added 15 new clients (between 2009-2012). “Its flexibility, experience, strong process controls, innovative solutions and its corporate vision to progress with its customers, makes us a partner of choice. Our customers know that the company has acquired a professional set up with global infrastructure and operations in place. This has helped us in maintaining our clients’ faith in us. For sustainability, we need to continually deliver best-in-class quality products to our customers—on time, every time. This necessitates robust systems in place, which ensures that the highest standards of efficiency and productivity are maintained across functional areas such as quality, supply chain, operations and engineering. All our processes are systems driven and are backed by the SAP platform,” shares Raminder Soin.

Challenges faced

While the company has been growing in leaps and bounds, procurement, supply chain management and getting new vendors and partners are still some of the challenges. As major EMS companies get more than 60 per cent of their components from other parts of the world, the lead time gets very critical. “When a customer comes to us with a new product to launch and there is a timeline, procuring components and sourcing becomes a major issue of concern as our supply chain is located thousands of miles away. So, in mass production, getting volumes out in the right time, along with supporting our OEMs becomes a big challenge,” says Raminder Soin.

According to him, another challenge is the under-developed ecosystem of electronics manufacturing in the industry. Also, the lopsided focus of the government, which is skewed towards software rather than hardware, has been another challenge for the electronics manufacturing industry. He shares, “The major challenges have largely been because of the unfavourable government policy on electronics manufacturing, the unavailability of affordable capital and a weak electronics ecosystem. However, with the National Manufacturing Policy now in place, we are confident of an upturn in electronics manufacturing in India. Also, Andhra Pradesh government has announced its own hardware policy. The government has woken up to the necessity of building an ecosystem,”

Exploring global opportunities

Quad has evolved into a full fledged PLM services company providing one-stop solutions to its customers. Established with 80-100 employees, the company today has a strength of more than 700. It believes in the philosophy of the three Ps—people, processes and progress. By investing in the right kind of human capital and adhering to the right operational philosophies, progress automatically follows. This is what the company has been able to encash.

Based on the strength of its people and driven by strong organisational values focusing on delivering best-in-class quality, the company has steadily been adding a slew of customers to its existing portfolio. The company started exporting in 2011, when it acquired three major clients from the US and UK. Not disclosing the names of its clients, Raminder Soin adds, “We have acquired capabilities wherein we started beating China in terms of cost. The No. 1 company for computer peripherals in the world, which manufactures only in China, came to us for manufacturing. One of the biggest telecom companies in the world, based in Europe, to whom we export data modems, picked us rather than any Chinese company. Knowing the limitations that India has today in terms of the under-developed ecosystem, we have still been able to achieve this. So it’s not just domestically, but globally too, we have been able to add value.”

Infrastructure and certifications

At present, Quad has three units located on a 2 acre campus with 6503.2 sq m of built-up space, of which 4645.2 sq m is dedicated to DTA and 1858.1 sq m is dedicated to EHTP for export clients. It is equipped with state-of-the-art surface mount lines capable of handling 0201, BGA, X-ray, automated optical inspection, ICT, WLAN testers among other test equipment. There are three SMT lines at the Medchal unit, and the Jeedimetla facility is for support, packaging and warehousing purposes.

Also, the company is OHSAS 18001 certified, which is a specification for Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Management Systems. It also has ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management Systems (EMS) certification for its commitment to environmental protection and socio-economic needs.

Quad is also among the few companies to have received a certification from the SSQGA. It is active in the defence and aerospace segment, handling prestigious projects.

To add to its list of accolades, Quad is recognised as the first Indian company to manufacture the world’s cheapest tablet PC—Aakash. It had partnered Datawind, a UK-based company that had designed the tablet in collaboration with IIT Rajasthan. In 2005, Raminder Soin was awarded the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ award from Hyderabad Manufacturing Association (HMA), Hyderabad. The company recently secured the ‘Silver Certificate of Merit Award for Excellence in Manufacturing’ by Frost & Sullivan.

Expansion plans

Viewing the number of projects that are flowing in, Quad plans to add six more high speed SMT lines to cater to the growing demand both globally and domestically. Also, the company is exploring options for inorganic growth as a gateway to other high-growth markets.

Along with this, it has recently ventured into the solar sphere, exploring new markets for solar power projects and power generation. This is part of the overall expansion plans of Quad. Africa would be the first set of markets that Quad is targeting for this venture.

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