Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1101604
8 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2019 It sounds so perfect—"smart" manufac- turing. That must be what we've needed all along! We've had enough of this "average in- telligence" manufacturing. Yes, we've heard quite a bit of chatter about smart manufactur- ing over the past few years. Whatever "smart" means to you, everyone involved in designing, fabricating, and assembling PCBs wants to get on board. The PCB community in the U.S. often feels like it's a little behind the curve compared to other industries, and that's definitely the case here. Manufacturers in Asia have already seen gains in efficiency, productivity, and sustain- ability by adopting integrated, collaborative, data-driven processes. The North American PCB fabrication community is playing catch- up regarding smart manufacturing and Indus- try 4.0. At the same time, many U.S. PCB designers are curious about what this smart new world means to them and their "old-school" CAD data. Fabricators in the states can also be for- given for wondering the same thing, especially when CAM departments receive so many in- accurate or incomplete design data packages. Is PCB design ready for smart manufacturing? What are designers going to have to do differ- ently for OEMs to take full advantage of smart technologies, such as Industry 4.0 and IPC's Connected Factory Exchange (CFX)? We asked some of our expert contributors to share their thoughts and opinions about smart manufacturing and what this means for the PCB designers and design engineers on the front end. Our first feature is by Patrick McGoff, market development manager, and David Wiens, Xpe- dition product marketing manager, both with Mentor, a Siemens business. They explain how intelligent design data is a necessity for smart processes, and why the information in a sim- ple bill of materials (BOM) will not be ade- quate for manufacturing in the future. The Shaughnessy Report by Andy Shaughnessy, I-CONNECT007 Get Smart!