Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1098973
APRIL 2019 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 57 Johnson: Can you make use of CFX and Hermes right now, and do they support your technical roadmap? Reiselt: For Heatwave, CFX, Hermes, all of the different communications don't play a vital role for us simply because we must have the failure data in reference designator format. But for our other product, Flexline, which is slide- line documentation, they play a role and allow us to change and launch exactly what we need as the boards arrive. Johnson: Talk to me a little bit about that prod- uct as well. How does it all play together? Reiselt: Flexline runs off of the same software engine as Heatwave. It's a pictorial represen- tation of your board. As many people know, when doing slide-line documentation, it's great; you do it one time, and it's out there. But the challenge from the manufacturing floor is if engineering sets the slide line up for six people and only five people showed up, the documentation is no longer valid. So, what the industry has done for years is take the parts from the person that's not here and redistribute them, but the documentation doesn't change. Flexline sets it up for the opti - mum six stations, for example, and if only five people show up, you only log in five people; it automatically redistributes all of the parts based on the rules that were put in by engi - neering and changes all of the documentation in less than one second. Johnson: It was pretty impressive to watch on the show floor. Flexline is some of the most interesting resource leveling implementation I've ever seen. Reiselt: Thank you. We'll pass that along to the development team. They will be very happy to hear that. Johnson: Can we talk just a little bit about where you see this sort of software going? How do you plan, for example, to utilize CFX or Hermes as a communication platform for new and better things? What do you see in the future for Octane? Reiselt: We're still a pretty new company. The ideas have been around for a while, but the working products have not been; Heatwave is less than three months old, and Flexline is three weeks old. For the next year or two, we plan on perfecting those. We have some beta sites set up and quotations out for a few people as of today, which was very exciting for us. Also, we currently use it in our own factory. CFX, Hermes, and all of the standardization makes everyone play together better. I can't think of a better way to bring the whole indus- try together. Think of all the vendors at IPC APEX EXPO. Right now, if you want to have a Panasonic surface-mount line, an Ersa wave solder, a Heller oven, etc., getting them all to communicate takes a whole development team to put that together. And switching over and getting everybody on a standard format really brings it to where we can get the data and make it useful for everybody in real time. Johnson: One of the things I've heard often at IPC APEX EXPO was that these two protocols create a lot of data. And the question is, "What exactly to do with all that data?" I heard multi- ple conversations about integrating the data upward to the enterprise level—going up to the management suite, not down to the manufac- turing floor. You seem to be a little contrarian in that regard. The ideas have been around for a while, but the working products have not been; Heatwave is less than three months old, and Flexline is three weeks old.