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Advanced Energy Recognizes Vanguard EMS for Best NPI Support

Award Presented for NPI performance at the 2006 Advanced Energy Supplier Conference

Beaverton, Ore. January 29, 2007 Vanguard EMS, a leading electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider serving advanced technology companies, announced that it has been recognized for Best NPI Support of the Year by Advanced Energy Industries, Inc.

Presented at AEs annual Supplier day conference, this award acknowledges Vanguard EMSs ability to significantly reduce time to market for new products. Through early engineering involvement with Design for Manufacturability, Testability and Supply Chain, Vanguard was successful in reducing lead-time on Advanced Energys NPI Velocity requests by over 50 percent. In addition, Vanguard EMS provides valuable input on the initial design by highlighting cost, quality and delivery drivers through its Design for Excellence (DFx) program. Analysis of this feedback through a highly collaborative approach is then considered for current and future designs.

Thomas Chinnici, PCBA Commodity Manager, stated: Vanguard EMSs commitment and dedicated program team was a key contributing factor to supporting Advanced Energys velocity and new product development goals. Vanguards DFx and test support at the early stages of development was critical in supporting this aggressive schedule and ultimately our customers requirements.

Floyd Sutz, Vanguard EMS President, said, The addition of our Vanguard Velocity division was instrumental in the success of these new programs. Our goal is to drive down the time and total cost of customers product introductions, and free our customers critical resources to work on the next design.

Once a product is ready to be introduced into production it is transferred through a checklist driven NPI process from Velocity to Vanguard Manufacturing (all in the same building with identical equipment) or to our customers off-shore partner. Vanguard Velocity has been operational since June of 2005 and was birthed through Vanguards Customer Alignment Process.

About Advanced Energy

Advanced Energy develops innovative power and control technologies that drive high-growth, plasma thin-film manufacturing processes worldwide, including semiconductors, flat panel displays, data storage products, solar cell architectural glass, and other advanced product applications. www.advanced-energy.com.

About Vanguard EMS

Vanguard EMS serves market-leading electronic original equipment manufacturers in the medical, industrial, telecom and computing industries. Vanguard EMS provides dedicated customer focus combined with operational excellence. Vanguards ISO 9001:2000, ISO 13485 and ITAR certified 70,000 square foot facility in Beaverton, Oregon offer six state-of-the-art SMT lines, in-circuit test, full functional test, and system build capability. The company has been in operation since 1988.

For more information on Vanguard EMS, please visit www.vanguard-ems.com.