Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1424540
32 SMT007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2021 increase the quality and the reliability of their output, of their electronics as they are built. Johnson: at's an interesting perspective. We're still at a place where even with the work to automate, the critical factor is still the hu- man operator, the process engineer. Dowd: Let's say I'm an automotive manufactur- er, and I've got three production lines running in three different places. Right now, technically, the process engineer can exercise some judgment, "When I inspect that joint, I like to see the fillet like this. I like to see it a little shinier." It's certain- ly experiential based, and it's certainly valuable. Not to diminish their expertise, but I could eas- ily make the case that it's introducing variability into my three lines. Now, if they're all running on the same AI engine, then whatever was detected is going to be consistent on all three lines. May- be it's not about eliminating the human, but it's about making a more standard, predictable, and consistent judgment on what we see and how we (or the customer) will react to it. Johnson: What advice would you give to manu- facturing lines that are looking to make inspec- tion better? How does Mycronic view the re- turn on investment, the value add? Vey: I think process control is the key here. You do not buy an AOI or an SPI just to flag, "ere is a defect." You buy some inspection machines to improve the quality of your final product, and to do that, you need to improve your pro- cess. is is the reason why we have introduced a feedback or forward loop between SPI and AOI. is is to control not every step, but the full line. We have the chance to have one ma- chine at the very beginning of the line and one at the end. is is first to avoid scrapping boards unnecessarily, to gain money at the end, and to take no risk on the final product quality. Johnson: So, the concept is that there is a feed forward loop, and information from earlier in- spection or processing could help flag for the final inspection equipment to pay particular at- tention to this area on this board, because of what we saw in the earlier data? Vey: at's exactly what it is. I will give you a simple example on the SPI. e SPI will de- tect a very small breach between leads. Some of the customers will say, "No, I don't want to take the risk. I scrub the board." Some will say, "I'm pretty sure that this breach will dis- appear in the oven, so I will let it go." But who will make the final judgment? is is definite- ly the AOI and the operator in the review af- ter we're through. In this kind of case, we can set the SPI limits so that the little breaches do not stop the line. We continue but we check at the end of the line that we are sure that we