Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1275152
AUGUST 2020 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 27 IPC-1782. With our Aegis FactoryLogix soft- ware, we do all of that within the four walls of the secure operation. External traceability is not a huge amount of data, as we're talking about event transaction record-keeping, includ- ing knowledge and relationship of the hierar- chical package and material IDs, package con- tents, process and asset owners, and details of significant events. It is too much data to put on a blockchain, so much of it will be stored in various secure cloud storage databases. People talk about blockchain as if it's the savior of everything secure, and it really isn't. Blockchain only prevents alteration to data that has been written already, through the process of duplication of the data across many unconnected systems, which—statisti- cally—cannot be all hacked at the same time. The volume of data is an order of magnitude or greater than the original data itself, bring- ing massively increased costs, access times, etc. Only a relatively tiny amount of data can practically exist in a blockchain, usually only the "digital fingerprint" ID of the phys- ical object, the electronic fingerprint of the associated data and transaction codes. Writ- ing data to, and reporting data after reading data from the blockchain, can still be compro- mised with a simple hack of an application. Security remains critical as we use this data going forward. The quality of the data traceability itself is another key question. Manufacturers often claim that they have traceability from the machine vendors on the shop floor, which is usually correct, but then you find compatibil- ity issues and "gaps" in the data. There's also box build assembly traceability, which, again, is not likely to be compatible. Companies col- lectively have been spending millions—if not billions—of dollars in an attempt to get inter- nal traceability to the levels needed for regula- tory compliance, but few have put everything together under a single IIoT-based platform solution that standardizes traceability data following IPC-1782 and is effective from end to end in manufacturing, covering all auto- mated and manual operations. We see major companies—especially in automotive—that have established their own traceability rules. If you're an EMS company and have 10 differ- ent customers, then you have 10 traceability specifications; thus, you have 10 different ways of operation and 10 more opportunities to for- get to do something, as well as zero chance of doing it efficiently. Johnson: This starts to sound like the early days of Industry 4.0. Ford: Precisely. Lucky for us, the data that's collected for traceability has a broad overlap with that used for Industry 4.0. Whether talk- ing about traceability, dashboards, reporting, analytics, AI, Lean materials, active quality management, etc., the secret in the software world is that it is all the same data. This is why it is important to have a single IIoT-based platform for MES, as you can get multiple val- ues from one set of data, as opposed to many sets of cost for a contradictory result. This was where the IPC's Connected Factory Exchange (CFX) is so important for the industry, as it defines the exact information that is needed, which includes the requirements for exact internal traceability. Implementation of Indus- try 4.0 values pretty much enables traceability without the additional cost of ownership. This is the original messaging that we've been put- ting out with traceability. Johnson: That makes sense because contract manufacturers have so many components run- ning. Traceability helps make a point for the bare board fabricators as well. They need to provide traceability for their boards as a part of the supply chain. That's critical. Ford: Traceability within PCB assembly must treat PCB fabrication as a key component— more of a sub-assembly—as the fabrication process is quite complex, and can introduce significant variation in terms of yield within assembly. I've seen real use cases where a company has made a thousand products, and one of them became defective in the market. What was the difference? They made it on the same production line with the same materials