KEMET Electronics – September 2019

LOOKING TOWARDS A DIGITAL FUTURE

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KEMET ELECTRONICS: WORKING WITH PARTNERS TOWARDS A DIGITAL FUTURE

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KEMET ELECTRONICS

CHRIS HALL, VICE PRESIDENT OF GLOBAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AT KEMET ELECTRONICS, EXPLAINS HOW THE COMPANY’S WORK WITH PARTNERS HAS IMPROVED ITS EFFICIENCY, AGILITY AND FLEXIBILITY

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EMET Electronics is a leading manufacturer of capacitors, inductors, magnetics and various other passive components critical

to circuit board assembly,” explains Chris Hall, the company’s Vice President of Global Information 04

Technology. The company operates more than 23 manufacturing facilities and 33 sales offices worldwide, predominantly in Asia and North America. In the last fiscal year ending in March 2019, the company shipped an estimated 54bn components to 188 countries and approximately 180,000 customers. KEMET components meet the needs of fast-moving market sectors including the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and the electrification of the powertrain and other systems in automotive.

As the company is celebrating its 100-year anniversary, Hall reflects on how far the business has come. “KEMET is very proud of its lineage of innovation and pushing the market and our industry into the next realm of innovation. In light of that, one thing we really try to be innovative about is how we use technology, which will drive our position going

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$1.4.bn Approximate revenue (FY2019)

1919

Year founded

15,000

Approximate number of employees w w w.ke m et . com

KEMET ELECTRONICS

“ THE COMPANY IS VERY PROUD OF ITS LINEAGE OF INNOVATION AND PUSHING THE MARKET AND OUR INDUSTRY INTO THE NEXT REALM OF THINGS” — Chris Hall, Vice President of Global Information Technology, KEMET Electronics

forward and make us the vendor with whom everyone wants to do business with because of our ability to deliver.

We want to be the emotional favorite of our customers; even if we’re not the lowest price. This mindset is reflected

by KEMET’s mantras: ‘Easy to Design In’ and ‘Easy to Buy From’, the foundation of the company’s strategy.”

Hall joined KEMET in December 2017 to drive the technical transformation required to ensure the company comes out on top as the ‘emotional favorite’ of its customers. He made a

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point to say it was his role to insure IT

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘THE KEMET STORY’ 07 was aligned with and supporting the

business with technical capabilities;

overall business strategy. In order to

IT is becoming easier to buy from.”

meet this goal, technologies have been

The company has also seen the benefit

introduced to improve efficiency,

of mitigated costs as a result of its

productivity, flexibility and quality to

digital transformation strategy. “The

support the business into the future.

goal is to utilize technology’s ability to

“Digital transformation is bringing us

help manage capacity and make it more

into the 21st century and enabling us

visible in real-time. This will enable the

to not only catch up with digital change,

company to be more productive and

but leapfrog into the future and take

improve quality.”

the lead,” Hall explains. “We’ve become

KEMET is also working to ensure

more agile, and this has allowed us to

it better harnesses its data: “It’s no

respond to and complete projects in

secret that, in order to be a digital

hours or days rather than weeks and

company, you’ve got to be able to

months. We’re able to delight the

capture, harness and analyze data and w w w.ke m et . com

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KEMET ELECTRONICS

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quality, delivery and service,” reveals

real-time as possible.” Concurrently,

Hall. “The new smart, stable and

KEMET is researching ways to use

secure wireless infrastructure from

data to drive a lot of its projects;

Aruba, which we’re deploying in more

striving to find ways to operationalize

than 50 locations globally, will allow us

broad, enterprise-wide artificial

to leverage gigabit wireless connectivity

intelligence (AI) and machine learning

to streamline operations, support

(ML) projects.

enhanced collaboration and innovations

“As KEMET looks to the future, we

in customer service as well as being

know that secure, pervasive mobility

prepared for technological advances.”

and IoT technologies will be key to

By utilizing Aruba Central and Clear-

maintaining our position as the

Pass Policy Manager, KEMET can unify

preferred global supplier of electronic

network operations and assure a

component solutions for customers

security platform that simplifies the

demanding the highest standards of

deployment, management and service

assurance of its wired and wireless environments through a single pane of glass. Similar to Aruba enabling its LAN for the future, the company’s partnership with Open Systems is revolutionizing its ability to ensure QoS throughout its WAN and provide the needed performance levels users expect of the cloud. These partnerships in KEMET’s new infrastructure will allow the company to build upon its 100-year tradition of enabling some of the most significant technological advances in history and continue 11 E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Chris Hall Chris Hall has spent 19 years in the after-market services and electronics manufacturing industries. Rising through the ranks at JABIL, Chris developed a strong understanding of supply chain management, lean manufacturing, and cross-functional leadership principles. After 14 years at Jabil, Chris was part of the iQor acquisition of JABIL’s After-Market Services division and was promoted to Vice President of IT Solutions for the newly combined IT department. He spent three years developing new technology to support iQor’s joint ventures and general corporate strategy to become a Digital Enterprise. For the past 18 months, Chris has led KEMET Electronics Corporation’s IT transformation as VP of Global IT, where he oversees all aspects of IT strategy including infrastructure, systems architecture, and development.

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KEMET and Open Systems— True Partners in Digital Transformation Driven by a rich history of innovation, and an unwavering commitment to excellence, KEMET manufactures the electronic components that power our world. Under the leadership of Chris Hall, Vice President, Global IT, KEMET is executing the cloud-first strategy that provides a true strategic advantage.

Together, KEMET and Open Systems are architecting a digital transformation— working collaboratively to design a managed SD-WAN infrastructure that provides the capacity, speed, and visibility needed to best support current and future network demands.

The Open Systems platform provides KEMET’s 15,000 employees better access to global data and intelligence and delivers secure cloud-based apps to the entire organization.

“Open Systems gives us visibility to network traffic and the ability to

control quality of service into various clouds in our environment,” said Chris Hall. He continued, “In working with Open Systems, we’ve been able to experience the significant cost savings and reduced IT capital expenditures that SD-WAN in general promises, but a lot of companies aren’t able to realize.”

As the company considers the “smart” technologies of the future like blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT), KEMET’s newly optimized infrastructure is poised to deliver a connected workplace for years to come.

Hall continued, “Open Systems has enabled us to expand our perimeter.

As we deliver more applications to the cloud, we look forward to working with them as true partners in our digital transformation.”

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CLICK TO WATCH : ‘KEMET – DRIVING INTO THE FUTURE’ 15

“ FOR A CENTURY, KEMET HAS REDEFINED THE POSSIBILITIES OF ELECTRONICS AND WE WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO FOR OUR NEXT 100 YEARS” — Chris Hall, Vice President of Global Information Technology, KEMET Electronics

driving toward our goal of being the reliable partner our business needs.

KEMET has also worked with Sirius to help with local area networks (LAN) upgrades in order to transport data from individual test devices to clients’ machines. The company must certify the data is appropriately monitored and traffic is segregated, enabling quality performance of services that are necessary to drive enterprisegrade IoT projects. “It’s very important that we get the infrastructure foundation of our digital transformation correct,” w w w.ke m et . com

KEMET ELECTRONICS

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“ IT’S NO SECRET THAT, IN ORDER TO BE A DIGITAL COMPANY, YOU’VE GOT TO BE ABLE TO CAPTURE, HARNESS AND ANALYZE DATA AND USE IT TO MAKE DECISIONS AS NEAR REAL-TIME AS POSSIBLE” — Chris Hall, Vice President of Global Information Technology, KEMET Electronics 17 says Hall. “However, as well as infrastructure, we must also address how we actually move data and make it available to disparate applications, including AI. This is where Software AG comes in – the company is the information highway through which all that data integration is going to happen.

Whether it’s collecting data from our shop floor, pulling in data from our ERP systems, or being able to utilize data coming in from customers and vendors, it must be reliable. Software AG’s Webmethods platform gives us the ability to work in real-time.” w w w.ke m et . com

KEMET ELECTRONICS

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“ WITH THE EXPLOSION OF DEVICES, OUR PRODUCTS AND SOLUTIONS WILL FUEL THE TECHNOLOGIES AND INDUSTRIES OF TOMORROW” — Chris Hall, Vice President of Global Information Technology, KEMET Electronics

As the company continues towards its digital future, Hall reveals what to expect: “For a century, KEMET has redefined the possibilities of electronics and we will continue to do so for our next 100 years. With the explosion of devices, our products and ​solutions will fuel the technologies and industries of tomorrow.” As one of the world’s most trusted partners for innovative component solutions, KEMET will be at the forefront of the manufacturing

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industry’s digital revolution. “Leading

technologies. I’m privileged to be part of

into the future and the next five years,

KEMET, and excited to lead the digital

we have a continued focus on our

transformation that’s being prioritized

mission in making the world a better,

to make this vision possible.”

safer and more connected place to live,” he adds. “This will be achieved through our technologies and materials science – these will be critical in redefining industries, such as the electrification of automotive, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Industrial Automation, AI and alternative energy w w w.ke m et . com

KEMET Electronics E. Broward Blvd, 2nd Floor Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 T +1 (954) 766-2800 www.kemet.com