Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1216587
18 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2020 statistical information quantifying the benefit that they've gained? Reuven: Not thoroughly documented yet, as it can take quarters or years to see the long-term trends. I'm trying to explain to them that they can better utilize their skills because most of the people in the industry—especially in the small factories—are very knowledgeable. They have years of experience. And the fact that they have so much knowledge means they can make the most out of using the software, not the other way around. This goes back to the same question about solving a problem. "I don't know how to do good scheduling, so I will buy software to cover for the knowledge that I'm missing." No. I'm saying that the fact that you have this knowledge—and you know how to do manual scheduling and planning—means that you will be a superuser. You will get the most out of the software. The mindset should not be about solving a problem but about achieving excel- lence. Reduce DPMO, improve yields, max- imize equipment utilization, and maximize OEE; that is where you make your profit. I'm convinced that out of all the Industry 4.0 pillars, this is the fastest way to get a return on investment with minimum risk. Every show I attend, I see these AGVs all over the place, and it's exciting. On the other hand, this is a huge investment. For some reason, people will buy another piece of hardware, but they will not spend $50,000 planning scheduling software Matties: It goes back to what you're talking about: best practices in business management and looking at your systems and understand- ing the flow and bottlenecks. Oftentimes, in North America, we hear about high-mix, low volume needing flexibility, and that it's easier for us to be manual—even to the point where they don't rely on a computer to schedule the work going through the shop to optimize their capacity. What do you tell somebody who has that as an argument? Reuven: They are looking at it the wrong way. This is the point where they think they will lose their job when, in fact, they can improve their job and do something else with their time. Instead of doing it manually with the three lines you have, you can take a scheduling tool and break down the lines into cells. We already have two customers doing this right now, and they completely broke the line into pieces; it's no longer the traditional line. You have the pick-and-place machines, oven, and AOIs all broken into cells. They took it to the extreme. They said, "I'm going to use software for my planning, but because I can do it in a much better way, I don't have to do it manually, so let's take it to the extreme. Let's make the most out of the equipment I have right now." We already have two customers doing this. There are fewer bottlenecks and much better avail- ability, so you can be creative. Matties: For those customers, do you have any