Vishay Precision Group, Inc. 10-K

Item 1. BUSINESS DESCRIPTION General Vishay Precision Group, Inc. (“VPG,” the “Company,” “we,” “us” or “our”) is an internationally recognized designer, manufacturer and marketer of sensors, and sensor-based measurement systems, as well as specialty resistors and strain gages based upon our proprietary technology. We provide precision products and solutions, many of which are “designed-in” by our customers, specializing in the growing markets of stress, force, weight, pressure, and current measurements. A significant portion of our products and solutions are primarily based upon our proprietary foil technology and are produced as part of our vertically integrated structure. We believe this strategy results in higher quality, more cost effective and focused solutions for our customers. Our products are marketed under a variety of brand names that we believe are characterized as having a very high level of precision and quality. Our global operations enable us to produce a wide variety of products in strategically effective geographic locations that also optimize our resources for specific technologies, sensors, assemblies, and systems. The Company also has a long heritage of innovation in precision foil resistors, foil strain gages, and sensors that convert mechanical inputs into an electronic signal for display, processing, interpretation, or control by our instrumentation and systems products. Our advanced sensor product line continues this heritage by offering high-quality foil strain gages produced in a proprietary, highly automated environment. Precision sensors are essential to the accurate measurement, resolution and display of force, weight, pressure, torque, tilt, motion, or acceleration, especially in the legal-for-trade, commercial, and industrial marketplaces. This expertise served as a foundation for our expansion into strain gage instrumentation, load cells, transducers, weighing modules, and complete systems for process control and on-board weighing. Although our products are typically used in the industrial market, our advanced sensors have been used in a consumer electronics product and are being evaluated for other non-industrial applications. The precision sensor market is integral to the development of intelligent products across a wide variety of end markets upon which we focus, including medical, agricultural, transportation, industrial, avionics, military, and space applications. We believe that as original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) continue a drive to make products “smarter,” they will integrate more sensors and related systems into their solutions to link the mechanical/physical world with digital control and/or response. We believe this offers a substantial growth opportunity for our products and expertise. Our History In 1962, Dr. Felix Zandman founded Vishay Intertechnology Inc. (“Vishay Intertechnology”) to develop and manufacture the first generation of Bulk Metal® foil resistors and later, foil strain gages. Resistors are basic components used in all forms of electronic circuitry to adjust and regulate levels of voltage and current. They vary widely in precision and cost, and are manufactured from numerous materials and in many forms. Bulk Metal foil resistors, developed by Dr. Zandman in the 1950’s, are the most precise and stable type of resistors currently available. A strain gage is a resistive sensor that is attached to the surface of an object to determine the surface strain caused by an applied force. Beginning in the 1960’s, Vishay Intertechnology established itself as a technical and market leader in precision foil resistors, and foil strain gages. These innovations were the genesis of the foil technology that is a unique strategic competitive advantage of VPG. The subsequent innovations and advancement of foil resistance and strain gage technology opened the door to numerous commercial applications, such as force sensors and control systems on a vertical market basis. On July 6, 2010, Vishay Intertechnology spun off its precision measurement and foil technology businesses through a tax-free stock dividend of VPG stock to Vishay Intertechnology’s stockholders, and we became a publicly-traded company. In the decade prior to the spin-off, Vishay Intertechnology expanded our sensor and measurement business through acquisitions, extending our business from its initial focus on precision foil resistors and foil strain gages to include an array of sensor-based solutions. These solutions include transducers/load cells, which are force sensors combining strain gages and the metallic structures to which they are bonded; load cell modules that utilize electronic instrumentation and software for measuring the load cell output; and measurement instrumentation and complete systems for process control and on-board weighing. In 2013, we completed our first acquisition as an independent public company when we acquired substantially all of the assets of the George Kelk Corporation ("KELK"). KELK engineers, designs and manufactures highly accurate optical and electronic roll force measurement and control equipment primarily used by metals rolling mills and mining applications throughout the world. As a part of our acquisition, we acquired a leased manufacturing, engineering, sales, and administrative facility in Toronto, Canada. - 3 - On December 30, 2015, we completed the acquisition of Stress-Tek, Inc. ("Stress-Tek") based in Kent, Washington. Stress-Tek designs and manufactures state-of-the-art, rugged and reliable strain gage-based load cells and force measurement systems. Stress-Tek primarily operates in North America, where their sensors and display systems are used in a wide range of industries, predominantly in transportation and trucking, for timber, refuse, aggregate, mining, and general trucking applications. Stress-Tek products are marketed under the Vulcan brand as part of the VPG Onboard Weighing offerings for our Weighing and Control Systems reporting segment. As a part of the Stress-Tek acquisition, we acquired ownership of a manufacturing, engineering, sales, administrative, and warehouse facility in Kent, Washington. On April 6, 2016, we completed the acquisition of Pacific Instruments, Inc. ("Pacific Instruments") based in Concord, California. Pacific Instruments designs and manufactures high-performance signal conditioning, data acquisition and control systems and has extensive experience integrating these systems. Pacific Instruments sells primarily to the aerospace, commercial aviation and defense markets in the United States. Pacific Instruments products expanded the offerings of our Foil Technology Products reporting segment, which already offered data acquisition systems, primarily in the field of strain measurement. As a result of our acquisition, we acquired a leased manufacturing, engineering, sales and administrative facility in Concord, California. On November 1, 2019, we completed the acquisition of New York-based Dynamic Systems Inc. ("DSI"), a provider of specialized dynamic thermal-mechanical test and simulation systems used to develop new metal alloys and optimize production processes. DSI is an established, high margin business, with a strong brand and has the largest installed base of products of its type in the world, according to market estimates. DSI expands our position in the steel market and offers opportunities for growth by leveraging our sales capabilities and market presence, and by expanding DSI’s product line to address new opportunities. DSI will report into the Company's Weighing and Control Systems segment. Our acquisitions added to our strong, diverse, global manufacturing, sales and distribution network, which includes facilities in Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We were incorporated in Delaware on August 28, 2009. Our principal executive offices are located at 3 Great Valley Parkway, Suite 150, Malvern, PA 19355. Our main telephone number is 484-321-5300. Leverage Global Brand While our acquisitions provided us an array of strong brand names, in addition to our historical resistor and strain gage brands, we believe the continued success of our strategy is best served by the establishment of a strong overall global brand. The “VPG” brand leverages the strength of these historical brands under the umbrella of a unified, globally recognizable VPG name. We continue to broaden and emphasize the VPG brand in the markets we serve under the following brands for each of our business segments: Foil Technology Products Force Sensors Weighing and Control Systems VPG Foil Resistors VPG Transducers BLH Nobel - Alpha Electronics - Celtron KELK - Powertron - Revere VPG Onboard Weighing - Vishay Foil Resistors - Sensortronics Dynamic Systems Inc. Micro-Measurements - Tedea-Huntleigh Pacific Instruments Key Business Vision and Strategies Our vision is to be the leading provider of sensors, and sensor-based systems with the highest precision, quality, value, and service for measuring force (weight, pressure, torque, acceleration) and current. As part of that vision, we are a leading provider of foil specialty resistors and strain gages, which are particularly effective in precision measurement applications. Our strategy is to achieve corporate growth and shareholder value by expanding our existing product portfolio organically, as well as by acquiring complementary precision measurement products. Specifically, we are focused on the following strategic initiatives: Optimize Core Competence The Company’s core competency and key value proposition is providing customers with proprietary foil technology products and precision measurement sensors and sensor-based systems. Our foil technology resistors and strain gages are recognized as global market leading products that provide high precision and high stability over extreme temperature ranges, and long life. - 4 - Our force sensor products and our weighing and control systems products are also certified to meet some of the highest levels of precision measurements of force, weight, pressure, torque, tilt, motion, and acceleration. We continue to optimize all aspects of our development, manufacturing and sales processes, including by increasing our technical sales efforts; continuing to innovate in product performance and design; and refining our manufacturing processes. Our foil technology research group developed innovations that enhance the capability and performance of our strain gages, while simultaneously reducing their size and power consumption as part of our advanced sensors product line. We believe this unique foil technology will create new markets as customers “design in” these next generation products in existing and new applications. Our development engineering team is also responsible for creating new processes to further automate manufacturing, and improve productivity and quality. Our advanced sensors manufacturing technology also offers us the capability to produce high-quality foil strain gages in a highly automated environment, which we believe results in reduced manufacturing and lead times, improved quality and increased margins. As a sign of our commitment to these businesses, we signed a long-term lease for a state of the art facility which has been constructed in Israel. Our administrative personnel have moved to the new facility, and we have begun the transition of our advanced sensors business to that facility. We also seek to achieve significant production cost savings through the transfer, expansion, and construction of manufacturing operations in countries such as India, China, and Israel, where we can benefit from lower labor costs, improved efficiencies, or available tax and other government-sponsored incentives. For example, in 2019 we incurred restructuring expense related to closing and downsizing of facilities as part of the manufacturing transitions of our force sensor products to facilities in India and China, which marked key milestones in our ongoing strategic initiatives to align and consolidate our manufacturing footprint. Organic Growth Our product portfolio is focused, to a significant extent, on specialty products serving niche markets. The development of specialty products requires us to form long-term relationships with our customers. Our specialty products are usually designed, or engineered, to meet unique specifications for OEMs. This often results in our customers creating a non-standard part number used solely to designate our product on their bill of materials. We call this customer activity a “design win.” This activity may create organic growth as the OEM customer begins to order increasing quantities to meet their production requirements, with little or no opportunity to purchase a similar part from competing suppliers. The “design in” time for these initiatives is typically 12 to 24 months. We expect to continue to use our research and development, engineering, and product marketing resources to introduce new and innovative specialty products. An example of our success in this regard is the recent acceptance and growth of our on-board vehicle weighing solution incorporating microelectromechanical systems ("MEMS") technology. Our ability to react to changing customer needs, emerging markets, and industry trends will continue to be a key to our success. Our design, research, and product development teams, in partnership with our marketing teams, drive our efforts to bring innovations to market. We intend to leverage our insights into customer demand to continually develop and roll out new, innovative products within our existing lines and to modify our existing core products in ways that make them more appealing, addressing changing customer needs and industry trends in terms of form, fit, and function. Growth from Acquisitions We expect to continue to make strategic acquisitions where opportunities present themselves to grow our segments. Historically, our growth and acquisition strategy has been largely focused on vertical product integration, using our foil strain gages in our force sensor products, and incorporating those products into our weighing and control systems. The acquisitions of Stress-Tek and KELK, each of which employ our foil strain gages to manufacture load cells for their systems, continued this strategy. Additionally, the KELK acquisition resulted in the acquisition of certain optical sensor technology. The Pacific Instruments acquisition significantly broadened our existing data acquisition offerings and opened new markets for us. Our most recent acquisition, DSI, expands our position in the steel market. We expect to expand our expertise, and our acquisition focus, outside our traditional vertical approach to other precision sensor solutions in the fields of measurement of force, weight, pressure, torque, tilt, motion, and acceleration. We believe acquired businesses will benefit from improvements we implement to reduce redundant functions and from our current global manufacturing and distribution footprint. Product Segments Foil Technology Products The Foil Technology Products ("FTP") segment includes our foil resistor and strain gage operating segments. Foil resistor products offer superior precision, stability, and reliability. Our resistor portfolio encompasses a wide variety of configurations and packages designed to meet the requirements of even the most demanding applications. Typical applications for foil - 5 - resistors include high end test equipment and electronics for the aviation, military and space, semiconductor, process control, oil and gas, and medical markets. Typical applications for strain gages, which include advanced sensor gages, are stress analysis for structural testing in the aviation, military and space, infrastructure, and construction markets, along with force measurement and weighing markets. Our innovative advanced sensors product line enhances the capability and performance of our strain gages, while simultaneously reducing their size and power consumption. This segment also includes our data acquisition systems business. The products in these segments are primarily based on our resistive foil technology, which continues to evolve and enables many products in both segments to be suited for new and varied applications. The manufacturing of the foil material is a critical and common component of the Company’s strain gage and precision foil resistor operating segments, and as a result, we experience synergies between our foil resistor and strain gage operating segments. The production cycles for foil resistors and strain gages are similar and many of the same raw materials are utilized in the manufacturing processes for both operating segments. The foil resistor and strain gage products require a similar level of labor and capital. However, the advanced sensors’ manufacturing technology offers us the capability to produce high-quality foil strain gages in a highly automated environment, which we believe results in reduced manufacturing costs and lead times, higher quality, and increased margins. Our Pacific Instruments business offers a broad range of high performance signal conditioning, data acquisition and control systems, many of which reach customers outside our traditional commercial customer base, such as U.S. government related customers. A significant portion of products from the strain gage operating segment are sold to third parties as “standard catalog items”; the remainder of this operating segment's products are sold as non-standard and/or custom products to third parties and to our Force Sensors segment. Force Sensors The Force Sensors segment includes a broad line of load cells and force measurement transducers that are offered as precision sensors for industrial and commercial use. Typical applications for force sensors are in construction machinery (for stability control, overload protection), agricultural equipment (for precision force measurement), and medical devices (such as hospital beds and medication dosing). The heavy equipment market has begun to adopt force sensors technology as process control and equipment control features for their products. These sensors use our foil technology products, which serve as sensing elements and components within each unit. Further integration of our load cells technology is also offered as part of our weighing module products, which provide customers with a complete sensor assembly that may be used within a wide variety of digital transducers. A majority of products from the Force Sensors segment are sold to third parties as “standard catalog items,” but a growing sector of this segment’s products are sold as non-standard and/or custom products to third parties. In addition, we sell products from this segment to our Weighing and Control Systems segment as well as to OEM manufacturers. Our sales teams act as direct sales channels (field application engineers (“FAEs”)) utilizing the primary customer interface relating to initial design specifications, development of prototypes, and pricing/delivery of this segment’s products. Distributors are also used for those customers that desire standard products. Weighing and Control Systems The Weighing and Control Systems segment designs and manufactures complete systems comprised of mainly load cells and instrumentation for weighing and force control/measurement for a variety of uses, including process weighing, steel manufacturing, on-board weighing and overload monitoring. Typical applications for our weighing and control systems products are: process weighing of chemicals, food and pharmaceuticals; aircraft and truck weighing and overload protections; weight, force and process optimization and simulation in steel and paper mills; and force measurement for offshore oil and gas exploration. Other major components that comprise our systems are: load cells, electronic displays; optical gages; laser systems; signal processors; MEMS sensors; cabling; system software; and communication software/hardware. The end use for the majority of these products is the precision measurement of force, weight, pressure, torque, tilt, motion, and acceleration. FAEs are utilized as the primary customer interface relating to initial design specifications, development of prototypes, and pricing/delivery of this segment’s products. Distributors and sales agents are also used, as appropriate, to market, sell, and support certain products in this segment. - 6 - Products Our precision sensor and sensor-based systems include products such as load cells, transducers, weighing modules, and complete systems for process control and on-board weighing applications. Our precision foil resistors and strain gages are based on our proprietary foil technology, which we invented. We manufacture and sell high precision foil resistors, foil strain gages, and data acquisition systems. Our product portfolio includes: • Foil resistors – Foil resistors are the most precise and stable type of resistors currently available. Resistors are basic components used in all forms of electronic circuitry to adjust and regulate levels of voltage and current. Our current sense resistors were developed with a low absolute TCR and Kelvin connections to meet the demand of stable resistive products Our foil resistors are used in applications requiring a high degree of precision and stability, such as in the following market segments: Avionics/Military/Aerospace applications, Precision Weighing, Medical applications, Test & Measurements/ Semiconductors, Oil & Gas and Process Control. We sell our foil resistors under the Vishay Foil Resistors, Alpha Electronics, and Powertron brands, including under our well-known Bulk Metal® trademark. The ultra-precision technology also provides extremely low temperature coefficient resistance and exceptional long term stability through temperature extremes. To complement our extensive portfolio of high-performance foil resistors, we also offer decade boxes, standard resistors, exceptional precision thin film and power resistors including special construction configurations to meet the requirements of high temperature applications. We have a road map of new technology products to meet the required needs of our customers. • Foil strain gages – Strain gages, including our advanced sensors, are resistive sensors that are attached to the surface of an object to determine the surface strain caused by an applied force. Typical uses of strain gages include test and measurement applications where the strength of the object is the main consideration and the object under test is a structural component in a machine or device, such as an automobile, an aircraft, or a highway bridge. Strain gages are also used inside precision transducers where the magnitude of an applied force is the focus of the measurement. A variety of physical measurements can be made using strain gages attached to metal components including force, weight, pressure, displacement, and acceleration. We sell our strain gages under the well-known Micro-Measurements brand. • Transducers, load cells, and modules – A transducer is mounted on a structure that is subjected to weight or other forces, such as the platform of an industrial scale. The term “load cell” is primarily used to describe transducers used in weighing applications. Strain-gage based transducers consist of one or more strain gages bonded to a metallic support. The change in resistance of the strain gages in response to deformation of the transducer by the applied load is detected by electronic instrumentation. Transducers are manufactured with different designs and configurations depending on their application and the type of stress or strain to be measured; for example, weight or tension. We produce both analog and digital transducers. Modules are transducers combined with a mounting and with external features, such as instruments and cables, and are used for weighing and control applications. We sell our load cells and modules under the overall VPG Transducers name as we continue to transition from the previously used Celtron, Revere, Sensortronics, and Tedea-Huntleigh brands. • Data acquisition systems – Data acquisition systems, which include instruments to measure, process, digitize, display, and record the output of our strain gages, transducers, and other sensor or sensor-based systems as well as deliver information to control systems. Our acquisition of Pacific Instruments significantly expanded our previous instruments offerings. • Weighing and control systems – Weighing and control systems are integrated systems for the detection and measurement of weight and other types of force, primarily for use in industrial applications. These include systems to control process weighing in food, chemical, and pharmaceutical plants; force measurement systems used to control web tension in paper mills, roller force in steel mills, and cable tension in winch controls; on-board weighing systems installed in logging and waste-handling trucks; and special scale systems used for aircraft weighing and portable truck weighing. Our mechanical and thermal simulators are used for testing and developing various types of metals. With our acquisition of Stress-Tek, we enhanced and broadened our on-board weighing offerings with products that are recognized for high quality in their markets. With our acquisition of KELK, we added certain optical gages for control systems and enhanced our other product offerings for process control in the steel mill industry. With the acquisition of DSI, we broadened our offerings to the steel mill industry and to materials testing labs. We sell our systems under a variety of brand names including BLH Nobel, KELK, Gleeble, and VPG Onboard Weighing. - 7 - Qualifications and Specifications Certain of our products must be qualified or approved under various military and aerospace specifications and other standards. We have qualified certain of our foil resistor and sensor products under various military specifications approved and monitored by the United States Defense Logistics Agency (“DLA”), under certain European military specifications, and various aerospace standards approved by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”) and the European Space Agency (“ESA”). Qualification and specification levels are based in part upon the rate of failure of products. We must continuously perform tests on our products, and report the results for qualified products to the qualifying organization. If a product fails to meet the requirements for the applicable classification level, the product’s classification may be suspended or reduced to a lower level. During the time that the classification is suspended or reduced, net revenues and earnings attributable to that product may be adversely affected. Certain of our load cell and instrumentation products are approved by the National Type Evaluation Program (“NTEP”) and International Organization of Legal Metrology (“OIML”). Many of our weighing systems must also meet these standards to make them usable for legal-for-trade weighing applications. Products and systems that are to be used in hazardous areas, where explosive atmospheres might exist, must comply with special safety standards, such as the European Atmosphère Explosible (“ATEX”) Standard and the U.S. Factory Mutual (“FM”) Standard. Our load cell manufacturing sites undergo periodic audits by regulatory authorities in order to verify compliance with standard requirements and to extend product approvals. Manufacturing Operations Our principal manufacturing facilities are located in Israel, the United States, Canada, India, the People’s Republic of China, Germany, and Japan. We also have manufacturing facilities in Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and France. Over the past several years, we have invested substantial resources to increase capacity and to enhance automation in our plants, which we believe will further reduce production costs. We have quality management systems at all of our major manufacturing facilities approved under the ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems Standard. ISO 9001 is a comprehensive set of quality program standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization ("ISO"). The quality management system in our major foil resistors manufacturing site is certified against Aerospace Standard AS9100. To maintain our cost competitiveness, we are pursuing our strategic initiatives to shift manufacturing emphasis to more advanced automation in higher-labor-cost regions and to relocate production to regions with skilled workforces and relatively lower labor costs. See additional information in Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations – Cost Management” related to our restructuring efforts. Sources of Supplies Although most materials incorporated in our products are available from a number of sources, certain materials are available only from a relatively limited number of suppliers. The principal materials used in our products include various metallic foil alloys, aluminum, stainless steel, tool steel, plastics, and for a few products, gold. Some of the most highly specialized materials for our sensors are sourced from a single vendor. We maintain a safety stock inventory of certain critical materials at our facilities. We are taking steps to determine the use, source, and origin of any tin, tantalum, tungsten, or gold in our global product portfolio and, if appropriate, would work with our suppliers to remediate issues and source more responsibly. A significant portion of our Force Sensors and Weighing and Control Systems segment products are based on strain gages produced by our Foil Technology Products segment. Inventory and Backlog We manufacture both standardized products and those designed and produced to meet customer specifications. We maintain an inventory of standardized components, and monitor the backlog of outstanding orders for our products. We include in our backlog only open orders that have been released by the customer for shipment in the next twelve months. Many of our customers for strain gages, load cells, and foil resistors encounter uncertain and changing demand for their products. They typically order products from us based on their forecasts. If the customers' business needs change, they may cancel or reschedule the shipments that are included in our backlog, in many instances without the payment of any penalty. Therefore, the backlog at any point in time is not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for future periods. - 8 - Customers and Marketing Our customer base is diversified in terms of industry, geographic region, and range of product needs. No single customer comprises greater than 10% of net revenues. The vast majority of our products are used in the broad industrial market, with selected uses in the military and aerospace, medical, agricultural, steel, and construction sectors. Within the broad industrial market, our products serve a wide variety of applications in waste management, bulk hauling, logging, scales manufacturing, engineering systems, pharmaceutical, oil, chemical, steel, paper, and food industries. Many of our products have historically been sold by dedicated sales forces, consisting mainly of FAEs focusing on specific market segments or specific customers. The FAEs help identify the products in our portfolio that best meet the needs of our customers and provide technical and applications support. Their in-depth knowledge of customer needs is a key factor in new product design and future research and development initiatives. Competition Our competitive success depends on our ability to maintain a competitive advantage on the basis of superior product capability and performance, product quality, know-how, proprietary data, market knowledge, service capability, and business reputation. Price competitiveness can be an important factor, especially within our Force Sensors segment. Our sales and marketing programs offer our customers a broad range of world-class precision technologies, and superior global sales and support. Competition in the markets where we sell the bulk of our products is extremely fragmented, both geographically and by application. To our knowledge, there are no competitors with the same product mix and proprietary technology as ours. Our competitors range from very small, local companies to large, international companies with greater financial resources than us. Our foil resistors and our foil strain gages are based on our proprietary technology. Competitors try to compete in this market using different technology to offer functionally equivalent products. Examples of competition in our Foil Technology Products segment includes KOA, Bourns, Vishay Intertechnology, TT Electronics, Susumu, Isabellenhute, Caddock and Flat Dashi for foil resistors, and HBK, an operating company of Spectris, Tokyo Sokki Kenkyujo Co., Ltd (TML), Kyowa and Zemic for foil strain gages. Competitors in our Force Sensors segment include HBK, Zemic, Utilcell, and Flintec. Competitors in our Weighing and Control Systems segment include Hardy Instruments and Mettler-Toledo for process weighing; ABB, Siemens, Haehne, Dalian, IMS and Fuji for steel mill systems; and Air-Weigh, Vehicle Weighing Systems, MOBA, and AMCS for onboard weighing. Research and Development Many of our products, manufacturing techniques, and technologies have been invented, designed, and developed by our engineers and scientists. Special proprietary resistive metal foil is the most important material in both our foil resistors and our foil strain gages, and our research and development activities related to foil materials are an important linkage between these two products. We maintain strategically placed design centers for each of our business segments where proximity to customers enables us to more easily monitor and satisfy the needs of local markets. These design centers are located in the United States, Israel, Canada, Sweden, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Germany. We also maintain research and development staff, and promote programs at a number of our production facilities to develop new products and new applications of existing products, and to improve manufacturing techniques. This decentralized system encourages individualized product development at specific manufacturing facilities that occasionally has applications at other facilities. Our research and development staff and our sales force are closely linked. Our sales force is comprised of individuals with an engineering background who can help meet the needs of our customers for technical and applications support. This in-depth knowledge of customer needs and specifications is a key factor in future research and development initiatives. Research and development will continue to play a key role in our efforts to introduce innovative products for new sales, and to improve profitability. We expect to continue to expand our position as a leading supplier of precision foil technology products. We believe our R&D efforts should provide us with a variety of opportunities to leverage technology, products, and our manufacturing base and, ultimately, our financial performance. To that end, we expect to sustain or increase our R&D expenditures in order to fill the product development pipeline and lay the foundation for future sales growth. Patents and Licenses We have made a significant investment in securing intellectual property protection for our technology and products. We seek to protect our technology by, among other things, filing patent applications for technology considered important to the - 9 - development of our business. Although we have numerous United States and foreign patents covering certain of our products and manufacturing processes, no particular patent is considered individually material to our business. We also rely upon trade secrets, unpatented know-how, and continuing technological innovation. Our ability to compete effectively with other companies depends, in part, on our ability to maintain the proprietary nature of our technology. Although we have been awarded, have filed applications for, or have obtained numerous patents in the United States and other countries, there can be no assurance concerning the degree of protection afforded by these patents, or the likelihood that pending patents will be issued. We require all of our technical, research and development, sales and marketing, and management employees, and most consultants and other advisors to execute confidentiality agreements upon the commencement of employment, or consulting relationships with us. These agreements provide that all confidential information developed, or made known to the entity or individual during the course of the entity’s or individual’s relationship with us, is to be kept confidential and not disclosed to third parties except in specific circumstances. Substantially all of our technical, research and development, sales and marketing, and management employees have entered into agreements providing for the assignment to us of rights to inventions made by them while employed by us. Environmental, Health and Safety We have an Environmental, Health and Safety Policy that commits us to achieve health and safety for employees and protection of the environment, to maintain compliance with applicable environmental, health and safety laws, to promote proper management of hazardous materials, and to minimize the hazardous materials generated in the course of our operations. In addition, our manufacturing operations are subject to various regional, federal, state, and local laws restricting discharge of materials into the environment. Since we are subject to Environmental, Health and Safety laws worldwide we incur capital and operating expenditures and other costs to comply. We are not involved in any pending or threatened proceedings that would require curtailment of our operations. The Company is in the process of designing, evaluating, and implementing a corporate Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG") program and intends to complete a materiality assessment, scorecard and short and long-term objectives with deliverables starting in the second quarter of 2022. Human Capital As of December 31, 2020, we employed approximately 2,300 total employees, substantially all of which were full-time employees. Approximately 87% of our employees were located outside the United States. Our future success is substantially dependent on our ability to attract and retain highly qualified technical and administrative personnel. Some of our employees outside the United States are members of trade unions. We support worldwide employment and promotion of diversity to innovate and drive long-term value, by continuous monitoring of compensation and benefits to assure competitiveness, while implementing a worldwide talent strategy that includes workforce planning and succession planning. The impact of COVID-19 on our operations has been mitigated through the issuance of Guidelines for Manufacturing Safety, Travel Safety and Personal Protective Equipment sourcing to ensure employee and visitor, contractor safety and continuity of operations. We have had no employee strikes or work stoppages due to labor disputes and we consider our relationship with employees to be generally good, however, no assurance can be given that labor unrest or strikes will not occur. We continue to support employee’s rights to collective bargaining and other recognized employee interests to organize. Information about our Executive Officers The following table sets forth certain information regarding our executive officers as of March 11, 2021: Name Age Positions Ziv Shoshani 54 Chief Executive Officer, President, and Director William M. Clancy 58 Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Amir Tal 51 Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer Ziv Shoshani is our Chief Executive Officer and President, and also serves on the board of directors. Mr. Shoshani was Chief Operating Officer of Vishay Intertechnology from January 1, 2007 to November 1, 2009. During 2006, he was Deputy Chief Operating Officer of Vishay Intertechnology. Mr. Shoshani was Executive Vice President of Vishay Intertechnology from 2000 to 2009 with various areas of responsibility, including Executive Vice President of the Capacitors and the Resistors businesses, as well as heading the Measurements Group and Foil Divisions. Mr. Shoshani had been employed by Vishay Intertechnology - 10 - since 1995. He continues to serve on the Vishay Intertechnology board of directors. Mr. Shoshani is a nephew of the late Dr. Felix Zandman, the founder of Vishay Intertechnology. William M. Clancy is our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Clancy was Corporate Controller of Vishay Intertechnology from 1993 until November 1, 2009. He became a Vice President of Vishay Intertechnology in 2001 and a Senior Vice President of Vishay Intertechnology in 2005. Mr. Clancy served as Corporate Secretary of Vishay Intertechnology from 2006 to 2009. From June 16, 2000 until May 16, 2005 (the date Vishay Intertechnology acquired the noncontrolling interest in Siliconix incorporated), Mr. Clancy served as the principal accounting officer of Siliconix. Mr. Clancy had been employed by Vishay Intertechnology since 1988. Mr. Clancy is a licensed CPA in Pennsylvania. Amir Tal is our Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer. Mr. Tal was appointed by the board of directors to such position effective February 5, 2020. He served as the Company’s Senior Vice President, Finance from March 2017 until February 2020. From July 2010 to February 2017, Mr. Tal served as the Company’s Vice President Operational Controller and Regional Controller Israel. Mr. Tal holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and business administration from the University of Haifa and an MBA from Bar Ilan University. Company Information and Website We began filing annual, quarterly, and current reports, proxy statements, and other documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 after our spin-off from Vishay Intertechnology on July 6, 2010. The SEC maintains an Internet website that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers, including us, that file electronically with the SEC. The public can obtain any documents that we file with the SEC at www.sec.gov. In addition, our company website can be found on the Internet at www.vpgsensors.com. The website contains information about us and our operations. Copies of each of our filings with the SEC on Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and Form 8-K, and all amendments to those reports, can be viewed and downloaded free of charge as soon as reasonably practicable after the reports and amendments are electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. To view the reports, access http://ir.vpgsensors.com and click on “SEC Filings”/ “Documents.” The following corporate governance related documents are also available on our website: • Compensation Committee Charter • Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee Charter • Audit Committee Charter • Code of Business Conduct and Ethics • Code of Ethics Applicable to the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Principal Accounting Officer or Controller • Corporate Governance Principles To view these documents, access http://ir.vpgsensors.com and click on “Corporate Governance.” To view our Ethics Program Reporting Procedures, access http:/www.vpgsensors.com/company and click on “Ethics.” We are not incorporating by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K any material from our website. Any of the above documents can also be obtained in print by any stockholder, upon request to our Investor Relations Department at the following address: Corporate Investor Relations Vishay Precision Group, Inc. 3 Great Valley Parkway, Suite 150 Malvern, PA 19355 - 11 -