Flextronics International Ltd. is an American supply chain solutions company that offers
design, manufacturing, distribution and aftermarket services to original equipment manufacturers.
Flex is a Global Fortune 500 company based in the Silicon Valley and is the second largest
global Electronics Manufacturing Services company by revenue, behind only Taiwan's Foxconn.
Flextronics has manufacturing operations in over 30 countries, totaling approximately
27.2 million square feet and 200,000 employees.
History
In 1969, the company was founded in Silicon Valley as Flextronics, Inc. by Joe McKenzie.
In 1980, the company was sold to Bob Todd, Joe Sullivan and Jack Watts.
In 1981, Flextronics became a publicly held company.
In 1990, the company returned to being a private company in a leveraged buyout and was renamed
as Flextronics International, Ltd. with Singapore as its new base.
In 1993, the company received venture capital funding through Sequoia Capital, and became
a public held company again in 1994.
The company closed its contract electronic manufacturing plant in Richardson, Texas in
1996.
The company acquired two companies in Hong Kong, Astron Group and FICO Plastics Ltd.
and a Swedish-based company, Ericsson Business Networks.
In 2000, the company ranked third on "100 Best-Managed Companies" by Industry Week.
In 2005, the company purchased the manufacturing division of Nortel Networks, and Solectron
in 2007.
In 2006 Flextronics took over a part of the production of LEGO, but in 2009 LEGO decided
to end relations with Flextronics and purchase the production facilities in Mexico and Hungary.
On June 4, 2007, Flextronics offered to purchase Solectron for US$3.6 billion and thus making
Solectron a subsidiary of Flextronics.
The acquisition of Solectron was completed by end of October 2007, earlier than anticipated.
On March 18, 2009, Flextronics was invited to ring the NASDAQ stock market opening bell,
signifying the day’s start of trading and celebrated 15 year NASDAQ-listed anniversary.
Mike McNamara and a group of top executives represented the company at the ringing of
the bell.
On August 25, 2009, Flextronics announced that it was chosen by LG Electronics, a global
provider of advanced digital products and applied technologies, to manufacture 19, 22,
26, 32, and 37-inch LCD television receivers at its Juarez, Mexico facility for distribution
to the North and South American markets.
On September 2, 2009, Flextronics announced that Multek received Danaher Test and Measurement's
2009 Outstanding Supplier Award.
The award was given based on quality, delivery performance, engineering support and cost
for work with two of Danaher's business units, Tektronix and Fluke.
On September 15, 2010, Flextronics announced that it had been chosen by Brammo, Inc., a
global leader in the electric motorcycle business, to be its manufacturing partner for the production
and distribution of plug-in electric motorcycles and components.
The partnership represented an expansion of Flextronics' Automotive Division's portfolio
for battery powered vehicles and complemented its expertise in high voltage and energy recuperation
for the automotive market.
In 2010, the company signed an agreement with Lenovo to provide manufacturing for Europe.
That same year, Flextronics also signed an agreement with Brammo to provide acquisition
and manufacturing in North America, Asia and Europe.
In 2012, Flextronics incubated Elementum, a start-up supply chain management company
based in Mountain View, CA.
In 2014, Elementum spun off from Flextronics as its own separate entity.
In 2014, Flextronics was named as the manufacturer of the Fitbit Force by the U.S. Consumer Product
Safety Commission in the context of a complete recall of the product due to rashes developing
on the wrists of its users.
Business Areas High Reliability Solutions
High Reliability Solutions covers avionics, flight and engine controls, ruggedized communications,
wire harness for ground and air vehicles, night vision systems, security systems and
surveillance.
In the energy area, Flextronics supports generation, to transmission and distribution to smart
use.
Within this group, Flextronics also produce automotive smart electronics, lighting and
clean tech products.
High Velocity Solutions High Velocity Solutions covers consumer electronics
products such as mobile phones, smartphones, portable audio devices, wearable electronics,
wireless modules, home entertainment equipment, game consoles, printers, PCs, notebook computers
and tablets, as well as home and business connectivity products such as set top boxes,
gateways, femtocells, home automation devices and VoIP terminals.
High Velocity Solutions customers range from multinational corporations to technology startups.
Integrated Network Solutions Integrated Networks Solutions covers telecommunications,
including optical networking; networking, such as enterprise infrastructure; and servers
and storage space, including cloud computing hardware.
Seventeen manufacturing sites offer OEMS while seven design centers provide complex design
capabilities such as low power cloud servers, dense high-speed backplanes, EMI modeling,
line card design for optical transport and mobile backhaul tower designs.
Integrated Network Solutions customers span from growth companies to established companies.
Industrial and Emerging Industries Industrial and Emerging Industries covers
appliances, capital equipment and self-service products, safety and security, meters and
controls and printers), navigation and positioning technologies, and Flextronics Special Business
Solutions.
SBS specializes in manufacturing lower volume, highly diversified products for all industries.
Products vary from complex printed circuit board assembly to simple product integration,
with production capabilities of one to several thousand units.
Lab IX In 2013, Flextronics launched Lab IX, an accelerator
program based out of Milpitas, which will award $500,000 to each selected company to
grow their ideas and bring it to market.
The focus of Lab IX is to find startups that are less than three years old, have less than
$5 million in funding: “early stage disruptive companies incorporating hardware and software
innovation.”
In addition to a capital injection, Lab IX will also provide access to Lab IX and Flextronics’
engineers and designers, including IDEO, access to manufacturing and prototyping equipment
— some $30 million in the R&D center alone.
Those who look like they may be progressing to the next stage of their development get
access to Flextronics’ network of factories for manufacturing, procurement network and
marketing network.
Controversies Leak of iPhone 4 and iPad confidential data
One of the former Flextronics executives , Walter Shimoon plead guilty to commit wire fraud
and security fraud by providing confidential informations related to iPhone and iPod sales
figures in the third and fourth quarters of 2009.
He also leaked details surrounding the iPhone 3GS, which was unreleased at the time, and
the still unannounced iPad.
Breach of contracts Flextronics was sued what was apparent in
breach of contract with Beckman Coulter Inc. , medical device maker.
The case dates back to 1997, when Beckman Coulter entered into an agreement with Dovatron,
a unit of the Dii Group, to provide circuit boards for a Beckman blood analyzer.
Flextronics acquired the Dii Group in 1999 and, according to Beckman, shortly thereafter
Flextronics refused to provide the circuit boards unless it bought other electronic components
from the company.
Beckman filed suit in early 2001, seeking $2.2 million in damages, which were cited
as the costs incurred in having to retool one of its plants to manufacture the circuit
boards in-house.
At the end of trial, Flextronics pay $23million for the damages.
Customers Below is a list of major customers to which
Flextronics provides design, manufacturing or after-market services:
Notes
External links Official website