Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1447212
90 SMT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2022 Editor's note: Indium Corporation's Ron Lasky continues this series of columns about Maggie Benson, a fictional character, to demon- strate continuous improvement and education in SMT assembly. e January column concluded with these questions: Will BE buy Ivy Electron- ics? What will the price be? What is in the action plan? What is 5S and the 8 Mudas? Maggie asked Frank and Chuck to spend an extra day investigating Ivy Electronics. Aer- ward, the team (Maggie, John, Frank, and Chuck) discussed whether they should buy the company. "Well, team, what's the scoop?" John asked. "So, Ivy Electronics has a lot of room for improvement and growth, which may be good A Buying Strategy Primer news," Chuck said. "eir rework stations are a mess, but I worked with Phil Consol to apply 5S 1 methods and we straightened one up within only an hour or so (Figure 1). I think Phil became a 5S convert. We also identified Muda 2 issues (Figure 2). I'll let Frank comment on inventory issues in a moment. Regarding the Muda issues I observed, 'motion' was a big problem. A PCB is required to travel to a sec- ond building to have rework performed. en, in anticipation of future orders, we found 'overproduction.' Some of their future orders never materialized and became scrap. In addi- tion to this, their first pass yield is only 90%, so there is also a 'defects' issue." "What do you think? Are these issues solv- able?" Maggie asked. Maggie Benson's Journey by Ronald C. Lasky, INDIUM CORPORATION Figure 1: A desk before and after 5S was applied.