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Managing Director’s Review
Automated Optical Inspection (AOI)
Under ViTrox's AOI division, we design, manufacture and market technological advanced and cost effective automated optical inspection (AOI)
systems and related products, providing quality improvement solutions that are able to detect defects which occur during the manufacturing
process for printed circuit board (PCB) industry, flexible printed circuit board (FPC) industry and high density interconnect substrate (HDI) industry.
Our customers are manufacturers for PCB, FPC and HDI.
In a nutshell, AOI system consists of an image acquisition unit integrated on a moving stage and a image processing unit that performs sophisticated
image processing algorithms to detect defects on PCB. The most common defects on PCB include open, short-circuit, line width variation, trace
intrusion, trace protrusion, pin-hole and via-hole variation. AOI system is usually deployed for inspection of inner layers, outer layers and artworks
of PCB and FPC with line width as small as 25 um.
Our improved AOI flagship products, Challenger HS1802 & VF-10 have been successfully accepted by our customers in China. These products are
built with customers’ need in mind for ease of use, lower cost of ownership, higher inspection capability and more throughput as compared to its
predecessor.
Electronics Communication System (ECS)
ViTrox designs, manufactures and markets ECS products via its 100% owned subsidiary, ViE Technologies Sdn. Bhd. We produce a wide variety of
ECS products for machine automation community, who use our products for data communication and motion control. These products include high
speed digital input and output PC interface card, high speed low cost remote input and output controller PC interface card and remote modules,
high speed high resolution motion controller and driver boards, universal light source controller and digital signal multiplexing card.
In 2008, we continue to roll out new and enhanced ECS products to the markets. These products include new generation motion controller,
enhanced with more functionalities and high speed Remote Input and Output (I/O) digital interface boards. The motion controller and remote I/O
interface boards can operate in higher speed and mainly used in automation industries for various motion and digital I/O control applications.
As many of the ECS products are built backward compatible with existing similar overseas products in the market, we are able to provide customers
with a lower cost and customizable alternative to meet their stringent cost and performance needs.
With solid technical foundation in System-On-Chip (SoC) and embedded system design and development, our product development team is ready
to move forward to embark on higher end electronics communication products that will bring more business opportunities to the Company in
the near future.
Operation
ViTrox has a lean organization structure that allow us to operate with low operation cost and adapt quickly to changing needs of our customers.
We run activities that are of higher value and with higher complexity, such as sales and marketing, research and development, prototyping and
final assembly, testing and quality control in our facilities while outsourcing other less complex and high labor content tasks to carefully selected
sub-contractors in the region. With this structure, we are able to maintain an optimum overhead to run our businesses effectively.
While we continue to selectively expand our business in product innovation and market expansion in this challenging time, we pay attention on
our business fundamental, particularly in our cash flow management, to ensure that our operation is running in good health. Various cost control
measures were initiated by the management in Q4'08 to mitigate the anticipated downturn in demand of our products due to the global recession.
We re-looked at our operation to find wastes in every areas, minimize or eliminate them in a systematic manner without jeopardizing the quality
of our performance. We work closely with our suppliers to reduce inventories and meantime, we ensure our receivables are always in good control.
These indicators will be monitored closely and hence actions can be taken immediately when needed.
Lean Initiative
In our continued efforts to make our operation more efficient and effective, we started a company wide lean initiative in the middle of 2007. In
2008, we conducted various training programs internally and externally to equip our people with the right skills to get things done effectively.
We implemented a number of lean projects to eliminate wastes and improve productivity in various functions in the organization, which include
production, sales and marketing, research and development, administrative and support functions. Company-wide management review meetings
were conducted on quarterly basis to ensure continuity and continuous improvement. Lean tools are being refined everyday. Our objective is clear,
we want to focus primarily on delivering values to our customers and help our customers to win in their market. Therefore, we work together to
eliminate non-value added activities and refine value added ones in our business processes as we believe that by doing so, we will be able to create
lower cost and higher value products and services in a shorter time that are perceived as important by our customers. Ultimately, we will gear
ourselves to deliver products and services to our customers with the right cost and quality and at the right time. In 2008, more than 50% of our
people have attended various lean trainings. Moving forward, we will ensure that all of our people will be trained on lean methodology and be
able to apply the lean concept in their daily work.
