Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1124788
18 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2019 Matties: I'm quite surprised that we haven't had more of a noticeable impact from Watson. Ford: There are two elements to that. It's the connection of the intelligence to the problem. If you think about a human, we have a fantas- tic brain that's naturally intelligent. But when you imagine the number of connections that you have and senses on your body to feel, touch, see, hear, etc., it's extremely compli- cated. Sometimes, people underestimate how easy it is to apply AI to an actual problem because you need to define what the problem is and enable the AI to feel, see, and under- stand opportunities for improvement. That's the problem that we've not had until now because the data has not been there, but we just said the data is here, so a revolution is about to happen. Matties: For somebody that's looking at stream- lining their factory, a common thought is how to move and work through the factory as well as process elimination. How does CFX and the data collection model help with that? Ford: It helps with the analysis of what every- thing has been used to do. There are choices where you can have separate individual steps— maybe you can combine steps in a certain machine that makes more sense—but if you combine too much, it becomes more dedicated to a certain task, and you end up not using most of the machine capability. The depth in which we go within CFX to analyze the inter- nal functioning of each device means that you can do that level of optimization. For example, a machine vendor can say "I have a line solution or a solution that does two kinds of placement and inspection." In which circumstance would that be relevant? In which circumstance would that potentially not make the most of the equipment? And you could use something much cheaper much more effec- tively. The analysis of the real-world environ- ment within production will lead to successful choices of that equipment. And the result is going to be indefinite. With our software, we don't bring a product in and say, "This is going to be made on this line for- ever," because that's old-school thinking. We say, "We have this product. Where do you want it now? Do you want it on this configura- tion?" because this is a digital, adaptable model that's not presupposed to be in a specific place, which gives the flexibility for Industry 4.0. This is a standard feature in our software, but it's a revolution in that people are not allocat- ing a product forever to a line and then realiz- ing that line is running at 10% capacity. It may be the customer only wants 10%, but if you can move it to a line that runs at that quan- tity at 100%, why not? Bring the faster line for another customer. And these changes can be executed seamlessly without reworking, re- engineering, and making all of the programs again. You can do it without all of the pain because you have that central product model. Again, we're working with IPC on that with the IPC-2581 standard that defines the digi- tal product model. It is essential that we get all of that information and pass it to all of the machine vendors through CFX so that they can understand it immediately. We want people to understand the board perfectly, apply the opti- mization program, and be ready with a change- over of three minutes instead of three hours. Matties: The depth of knowledge that the machine vendors extract from their equipment becomes a purchase consideration because if I'm buying a piece of equipment, I don't want something that doesn't have all of the data capturing capabilities. Ford: Right. This is a big step forward in terms of opportunity for machine vendors. And those who have been working with us with CFX understand this 100%. Now, they're planning to have features available on their machines that are increasingly smarter through the inter- nal processing of external information and col- laboration with other machines without need- ing to talk to them in a business sense—no NDAs, contracts, or development teams. Sim- ply, "I'll utilize information and finish the job." Everybody who participates benefits, from the lowliest machine vendors and manufacturers