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March 2016 • SMT Magazine 43 a PraCtICal guIdE to ManagIng MatErIal CoSt IMPaCt This operation could take anywhere from 4–10 minutes per component in a typical stock- room with bins and shelves. There are many different methods that have been jerry-rigged to help with finding parts quicker or making the reordering process faster, such as Kanban, dual bin systems, weighing the parts, folder- style reel holders, reels in bags hanging from racks, etc. Many methods (contraptions) have been put together to hold the reels in a kit, so that they can be identified when moved to the feeder loading station, such as a peg board with long pegs, wire divider metro rack carts, manila folders and file cabinets, etc. Recently, a number of products have been introduced to help auto- mate stocking and kitting processes. Typically, this type of equipment is large robotic systems with low reel storage counts per cubic foot, an expensive elephant in the room with a high in- stallation cost. These robotic systems retrieve one reel at a time, taking sometimes more than 30 seconds per reel, which is much faster than a typical 4–10 minute retrieval time. The next area that has a lot of opportunity for non-value added labor reduction is the feed- er setup operation. The operator typically gen- erates a feeder setup sheet and goes through the stacks of reels the stockroom put together in or- der to find the right parts in order. If you really think about it, the stockroom takes a relatively organized stockroom and creates a disorganized pile of parts when they create a kit. Now the operator must locate these parts one by one and make sure they will not mistake the 1-ohm re- sistor for a 100 ohm resistor. The only reasons I can think of why a stockroom does this are: 1. They want to ensure the parts are there, and the stockroom parts match the system in- ventory. Somehow we believe that if we place the parts behind a locked door, the part counts miraculously become accurate. 2. The parts are far away from the SMT area. Companies justify this because they carry too much inventory and traditional storage shelves have too much wasted space to place the inven- tory next to the SMT lines. 3. The parts are expensive and need to be behind closed or locked doors. Due to the cost of components, many companies store them behind locked doors. During allocation periods, some parts do need to be protected because of their demand and or high dollar value. Regard- less, in each company, there are only a handful of parts that should be totally locked up. All of this creates extra work, which is prone to human error and mistakes that result in a la- bor intensive material handling operation. Figures 2 and 3 outline a typical process flow chart for loading feeders and reloading the feed- ers on the SMT machine. Figure 2: Typical process chart for loading feeders on the SMT machine.