This time EMSNOW Publisher Eric Miscoll and European EMS Guru Dieter Weiss started their day in Germany with SERO GmbH and ended it in the Netherlands at Neways.
SERO is a top 40 European EMS with close to three decades of history that was acquired in 2018 by the management and a private equity firm. Since then they've added facilities in the Netherlands and Slovakia and are close to adding a facility in Florida, USA. This sparks the conversation about global footprints, why size matters and how to get the necessary scale, and oddly a tangent related to cow sensors...
Neways is a top ten European EMS, recently 98% acquired by a family office investor. They also have a US footprint, this time in Milpitas, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Following more M&A discussion and some insight into consolidation in Europe and beyond, 'the boys' explore the value of standard equipment sets and systems to make managing a global simpler as projects are moved or repeated in different sites.