Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/817722
90 SMT Magazine • May 2017 when you can influence your resourc- es. I think we're the only vendor who can really do finite planning and take into consideration all of the restric- tions that we have at this point. It's definitely a part of our MSS portfolio for the shop floor and it's something where we're seeing a lot of advantages and a lot of traction with our big customers, which might have their own MES solution. They've done that so they're not really shopping for an MES solution today, but planning is not something that they under- stand and it's really too complex to be an Excel file, honestly. Las Marias: Are you seeing interest in this solu- tion? Manor: Very much. A lot of interest and a lot of demand and a lot of need in the industry for something like this, both from the machine vendors, the end customers, the ERP guys. Ev- erybody understands that today, they cannot really do this. Las Marias: I see. Oren, thank you very much for your time. Manor: Thank you very much for having me. SMT must take into consideration every- thing around the number of people I have today, the machines' availabili- ty, the shift, the material, everything around jigs and stencil because, just as an example, maybe the most effi- cient thing would be manufacturing the same product on two different lines. But if I only have one stencil, I cannot do that. Maybe it would be best for me to work in a third shift, but I don't have enough manual operators and I can't train them. The machines are there and it's easy to take them and under- stand them, but there are a lot of other things which are very finite in the factory for the next 24 hours. I can't really impact too much of the factory in the next shift. Now it is, 'How do I model that and how do I assimilate that in or- der to get the best plan for the next shift, and so on?' That's what we're putting an effort on smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0, and also a deeper look into planning. Las Marias: Is it already available? Manor: It's already available. It's called Valor Production Plan. It's available today and it's re- ally, in my opinion, the leading solution of its kind. A lot of solutions out there can do infinite planning, but that's good only for longer term MENTOR GRAPHICS: CONNECTING THE MANUFACTURING ENVIRONMENT IPC Hall of Famer Ray Prasad, chairman of the IPC-7530 commit- tee, provides I-Connect007 Guest Ed- itor Joe Fjelstad an overview of the newly revised IPC-7530, which pro- vides users with guidelines on how to successfully profile and character- ize PCB assemblies with high levels of efficiency. Watch the Interview Here Real Time with…IPC: Ray Prasad Discusses Revised IPC-7530 Reflow Profile Guidelines