Jabil Circuit

History

The company's name derives from those of its two founders, James Golden and Bill Morean, who founded the company in 1966. Jabil was incorporated in 1969. An early product was PCBs.

In the 1980s, the company was making parts for PC companies like Dell, and this continued through the mid 1990s.

The company went public in 1993. In 1998, Jabil began trading publicly on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol JBL. The company was added to the S&P 500 Index in 2001. The company was moved from the S&P 500 Index to the S&P MidCap 400 Index in 2014.

On March 1, 2013, Jabil appointed William E. Peters as President and William D. Muir, Jr. as Chief Operating Officers. Both had been with Jabil for more than 20 years. On the same day, Mark Mondello was appointed to CEO, replacing Timothy Main, who was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors. The appointments were sparked by the retirement of Board Chairman William Morean whose father founded Jabil in 1966.

The company reports on its website that it operates 90 plants in 23 different countries.

Business areas

Jabil customers span numerous industries, including healthcare, life sciences, clean technology, instrumentation, defense, aerospace, automotive, computing, storage, consumer products, networking and telecommunications. Its services include design engineering, manufacturing and supply chain services for the EMS and consumer industries; and materials technology services (plastics, metals, automation and tooling). Jabil diversifies their business into three areas.

Services

Jabil is involved in design engineering services. The company has industrial design services that concentrate on designing the look and feel of plastic and metal enclosures that house printed circuit board assemblies and systems. Mechanical design services of Jabil include dimensional design and analysis of electronic and optical assemblies. Computer assisted design from Jabil includes printed circuit board assembly design testing and verification and other consulting services.

Design engineering

Jabil has an industry-specific design team for each of the industries that they supply including computer and storage, digital home, healthcare and instrumentation, point of sale, and mobile. Jabil has assisted many Fortune 500 companies with design and engineering including inventing the Sandy Creek, a dual Intel Xeon E5-2690 (Sandy Bridge Romley-EP) based reference design for use in customer applications. Jabil also assisted Cisco with value engineering by placing RFID in circuit boards to store data about the host board.

Supply chain and logistics

Jabil provides supply chain and logistic services. These services include electronic sourcing, virtual / vertical mechanics, logistics, supply chain management, advanced planning, quality, standardized global systems, and supply chain solutions and business analytics. Examples of the company's supply chain and logistics management were seen during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. When supply chain disruption occurred, Jabil re-routed supply from alternative sources, allocated limited production to key customers and distributors, specify and quality alternative parts, and called on existing suppliers to help reduce the impact of the disruptions. Jabil was able to do the same during the 2010 and 2011 Thailand floods.

Company culture

Over the years, Jabil has received awards for its community engagement and business practices. Jabil’s organizational culture supports numerous social and environmental responsibility initiatives and embraces lean thinking throughout the organization. The company also has its own university that it uses to promote employees from within the company. The university has programs for Operator To Supervisor, Blue Collar to White Collar, and White Collar to Future Manager.

Jabil's company culture uses the concept of lean manufacturing which is the process of driving improvement and innovation by reducing waste and increasing process speed. In September 2011, Jabil hosted 14,000 Kaizen Blitz events. Kaizen is a Japanese term for improvement and Kaizen events are focused projects that aim to improve processes. Many of Jabil's senior leaders are currently undergoing or have already achieved Six Sigma Black Belt Certification (a Jack Welch principle).

Jabil also holds an annual improvement competition known as "Deliver Best Practices." This is a company-wide (and worldwide) competition to recognize, support, and promote process advancements within the company. Employee teams enter innovative and cost-saving projects into the Deliver Best Practices competition. After several rounds, the top twenty four projects from the global teams win a trip to Jabil's corporate offices and present their projects to company executives in person. One project in four different categories is chosen and the team receives a $10,000 prize.

Social and environmental responsibility

Jabil is involved in both social and environmental responsibility. Jabil employs a Director of Social and Environmental Responsibility as part of their company who also serves on the Board of Directors for the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition. Jabil is also involved with charity and non-profit organizations outside of the Tampa / St. Petersburg area as well. They are a donor for the Guadalajara Los Pinos Boys Shelter in Los Pinos, Mexico. In Japan, Jabil Gotemba employees harvest and sell fruits to Jabil employees and use the proceeds to purchase and donate wheelchairs to the Gotemba community. Jabil employee Rick Smiley climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2011 to raise money for charity. The funds that he raised went to an orphanage in Kenya called "New Hope."

As part of the company's global initiative, more than 7,000 Jabil employees donated money to help the victim's of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Jabil Green Point Wuxi and Wuxi Konggang Industrial Park teamed up to build the Shuofang Agricultural Sanatorium for the Disabled and the Health and Happiness Garden on site. The facility opened on May 15, 2012.

Awards and recognition

Jabil has been the recipient of many awards and recognition. It was the first ever recipient of the Mexican government's National Quality Award which was given to it in 2006. This award is given to organizations recognized for their total quality management practices.

The company was awarded with the Excellence in Best Practices Award from Frost & Sullivan in 2009. The company also received an HR award in Poland and a NEC Solution America's Favored Supplier Award. Jabil was awarded with the 2010 Save Energy Now Award by the United States Department of Energy.

Jabil made the list of Newsweek S&P 500 Green Companies in 2011. It was the 3rd consecutive year for Jabil to be on the list, improving each year from number 200 to number 127 in 2011 They were also given the 2010-2011 Annual Enterprise of Harmonious Labor Relation of Guangzhou City award.

In 2012, Jabil was recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of the Fortune 500 Most Admired Companies Jabil was also awarded with the 2012 Kaizen Award in China by 1MFG and Masaaki lmai’s Kaizen Institute Consulting Group (KICG). In 2012, Tim Main, former CEO and current Chairman of the Board, and Bill Morean, former Chairman of the Board of Directors, won Entrepreneur of the Year Awards from Ernst & Young, LLC for the Florida region. Jabil Circuit Shanghai received the Institute of Engineers Lean Best Practice Award in 2014, an award given in recognition of innovation and Lean Six Sigma capabilities.

Acquisitions and expansion

Jabil has acquired numerous companies and arms of companies. Their acquisitions have helped them expand their presence in countries such as China, Mexico, India, Spain, the Netherlands and Russia to name a few. In 2011, Jabil opened a Photovoltaic Certification and Testing Laboratory in St. Petersburg, FL. In February 2013, Jabil announced it would be purchasing Nypro for $665 Million in cash. The purchase was completed in July 2013.