Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1472190
72 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2022 or in-line checkpoint but getting the talent to fill those roles is not easy. Johnson: Does that shine more light on mecha- nization, automation, or additional sensors on the line? Preston: Yes, but consider that 70% of what we do is quick turn. Once all the parts are here, customers want their boards in five days, and they may have given me an additional five days to get the parts here. ose 10 days really don't allow me a lot of the programming time, or the dock control checks available to conventional processes. Our quick-turn side of the business runs with nimble production. Johnson: Does the challenge of finding qualified talent to be on the shop floor, while also need- ing to do more inspection right now, thanks to the less predictable supply chain, start to tip the scale toward investing in automation? Sounds to me like you're not quite there yet. Preston: My COO is doing the ROI on that to see if we are really that deficient on labor vs. the payback of automation. Preston: It's very reactionary for us. We average about 150 customers a quarter. Now, multiply that times the number of SKUs or assemblies. Furthermore, those same 150 are not quarter over quarter. We have maybe close to 750 cus- tomers in our backlog right now. So, when you talk about the complexity and the variability, it changes quite a bit month over month, build over build, day over day. When we're changing over lines, we must be nimble. Johnson: As this work ebbs and flows, how do you respond? Is there potential in the current situation to start looking at the processes dif- ferently to be nimbler without a spike in labor hours? Preston: at's a good question. It does vary. It can be very labor-intensive depending on the type of packaging that we're getting. One par- ticular customer will literally bring us a bag full of parts, which requires a new level of work. Johnson: You sort them out piece by piece, don't you? Preston: Yes, and you must figure out the polar- ity. Speaking of that, we recently had a case with a franchise part from a broker. e part was good, but it was marked wrong from the manufacturer. You don't see that every day. We must pay closer attention and be more cogni- zant of what we get in and what goes on the green board. Johnson: Have you found that you need addi- tional checkpoints to catch these sorts of things? Preston: Yes, for a couple of the really criti- cal applications. We have a couple of custom- ers with extremely expensive boards where we can't afford to find issues at a later stage. e challenge is that we just don't have the resources. Talent is the other shortage. We may want to add another incoming inspection Ron Preston