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OCTOBER 2019 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 39 discrepancies between theoretical inventory levels and material locations versus physi- cal reality. This resulted in unexpected inter- nal material shortages, massive material scrap, and huge, bloated material inventories. The revolution has come from the adoption of Lean technologies within the IIoT-based dig- ital MES platform. Delivering materials "just in time," as needed to production processes without any kit preparation—plus the exact material consumption derived from the CFX data—means that every individual component instance can be accounted for by the digital MES platform. Material logistics decisions are thereby optimized to reduce excess work and enable efficient use of automation. Material purchase decisions can be altered to remove the needlessly bloated stock, reducing the time for which materials need to be onsite and the space in which they need to be stored. The elimination of kits also means that changes in product allocation and work orders, as demanded for the achievement of on-time delivery, can be supported through the JIT logistics operation, eliminating unmanaged shop-floor stock. This enables the flexibil- ity of manufacturing that Industry 4.0 man- dates, which is driven by digital manufactur- ing engineering and IIoT-based MES together. The whole factory, as a result, is more nim- ble and agile, and able to respond to needs for change far quicker without losses while using a lot less space. Quality Management As the most important aspect of successful manufacturing, quality management has trans- formed over the years, but somehow, is now going backwards. Factories used to test sam- ples of incoming materials as well as outgo- ing products—each of which had a detrimental effect on the achievement of production and delivery targets, representing a very large and needless cost. After all, materials and products should be perfect. Every dollar spent on quality checks could be interpreted as an admission of potential failure. Trends in quality management have followed this mantra for some time, pushing the respon - sibility for material quality back to the supplier, such that incoming inspection can be reduced or abolished. In-line quality management has, to a great extent, replaced the dependency on finished goods sample testing. Quality man - agement system (QMS) databases, with their collection of data from inspection and testing machines, have dramatically improved quality performance over time, and as a result, prod - uct reliability. Today, an effective, state-of-the- art QMS combines the ability to firewall qual- ity issues in materials arriving from suppliers, detect and resolve in-process quality issues, and then digitally manage corrective actions to continuously improve the process via correc - tive and preventative action (CAPA). The revolutionary steps forward towards actually achieving zero defects, however, is facing an additional threat that might send quality management back decades: counter- feit materials. With the increase of ingress of counterfeit components not only of special- ized parts but also everyday passive compo- nents—such as ceramic capacitors—the need for incoming inspection and testing of materi- als is returning, re-introducing associated costs and delays. However, modern counterfeits are delivered in such a way as to defeat inspection procedures and create maximum confusion in manufacturing to hide their origin. Digital MES and Lean material management tools, combined with the quality manage- ment solution in a single package, are effective at being able to provide the exact traceabil- ity of materials. Patterns in test and inspec- tion results throughout manufacturing can be associated precisely with the related incoming material carrier, providing clear and unambig- In-line quality management has, to a great extent, replaced the dependency on finished goods sample testing.