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46 SMT Magazine • June 2017 by Stephen Las Marias I-CONNECT007 Quintin Armstrong, general manager for North America Sales and Service at Saki Amer- ica, speaks to SMT Magazine about the Indus- try 4.0 strategy for inspection equipment pro- viders. He also explains why manufacturers are finding it more relevant than ever to have an inspection line in their assembly lines. Stephen Las Marias: For starters, Quintin, tell us more about Saki. Quintin Armstrong: Saki is a Japanese compa- ny that has been in business for about 23 years now. In the AOI realm, Saki got their start devel- oping the line-scan 2D technology, and that be- came the benchmark for 2D systems back in the early days of AOI. In more recent times, we've been involved in X-ray equipment. Saki has a full line of automated X-ray inspection equip- ment and, with the onset of 3D technology, Saki not only developed one of the first 3D AOI machines, but also developed a 3D SPI, utiliz- ing the very same technology that Saki uses in the 3D AOI machines. That brings us up to the point where, now, when we look at Saki's line- up, we have all the 2D legacy equipment plus the full 3D lineup, SPI, AOI and X-ray. Las Marias: What can you say about the Industry 4.0 trend? Do you think people are ready for it? Armstrong: Of course, that's the current topic. We've seen some of these initiatives come up in the past and probably we never totally followed on through, but we do have a new situation too with the internet being so prominent. The In- ternet of Things is a real trend. Now, it's figur- ing out exactly what we can and will do with it, and how to go about that. There's a lot of activity going on with the machine connectiv- ity, the hand shaking, feed forward, feedback, SPI to printer, SPI to placement, AOI to place- ment, etc. There certainly is some good poten- tial there, but I think there's still a lot to be de- fined as to where it's going to go. Las Marias: What do you see as the challenges? Saki Discusses Industry 4.0 and True 3D Technology FEATURE INTEVIEW