Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1477844
64 SMT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2022 responsive and attentive to your needs. Don't get stuck working with a company that waits weeks or months to send you a quote. A company that offers extended support services will help you determine the volumes required, gather information about your prod- ucts, and offer to review your BOMs to deter- mine the equipment best suited for you now and in the future, based on projections. It is also vital that they ask about your area for the SMT line. e space you have available for a line has a big impact on which equipment makes the most sense. Once the equipment and config- urations are decided on, your supplier should be willing to generate line drawings that show the equipment in line with dimensions, to give you the full visual of how much space it takes up. Some SMT lines cannot be laid out next to each other in a straight line due to space con- straints, which is reflected in the line drawing. A good supplier should be able to give you rough costs for budgeting purposes over the first quote request and get firm numbers to you within days of receiving the BOMs to analyze. ey should always have service technicians available. It's even better if they have a dedi- cated service number that is answered directly, so you don't need to jump through hoops just to get support. As we continue to battle the supply issues and labor shortages, taking control of man- ufacturing and bringing SMT assembly in- house is becoming a more popular solution. Maximizing efficiency and keeping costs down by preserving existing parts, reworking placed parts, and beating the labor shortage issues are critical to maintaining increased productivity. Working with a responsive, qualified, equip- ment supplier reinforces these concepts and provides you with the support you need, every step of the way. SMT007 Chris Ellis is a sales manager/engineer for Manncorp Inc. To read past columns, click here. Chapter 1: How the NPI Process Has Changed and Where We're Going When forging into unknown territory or explor- ing new ground, it can help to look at where we've been so we can orient ourselves. Just a few decades ago, electronics manufactur- ing companies were producing high volumes of few products. The efficiency of electronics manufactur- ing lines is measured by overall equipment effec- tiveness (OEE) and total effective equipment per- formance (TEEP). Back then, this meant optimizing the time it took to build a single board. If the time it took to build one board could be reduced by a few seconds, the savings would be multiplied by the number of boards being built. This could be in the hundreds of thousands or millions of boards, with no changes in the line con- figuration. If it took a day to change over from one product to another, it didn't matter because the TEEP/OEE was driven by the time it took to build a board. In today's high-mix, low-volume production envi- ronments, performance is further enhanced with line efficiency. To continue reading this chapter, download your free book today! Book Excerpt: The Electronics Industry's Guide to… The Evolving PCB NPI Process