Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1491409
14 SMT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2023 tiple companies who are trying to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) system that works with the automated optical inspection (AOI) or X-ray inspection to eliminate the human operator in defect reviews. Currently, we've hired two companies to develop something to remove the human element. ey call this PLR, or paperless repair. Removing that human inspection step should make it much more accurate because if you have the mathematical data from the machines that do the solder joint evaluation alongside the optical images, then an AI machine should be able to build a database that says, "is joint is right, this one is good, and this joint is bad." Using an AI to execute that process will be bet- ter than relying on a human because the AI makes those determinations based on both the mathematical data and the optical data. We'll see where it goes, but if that happens, that's game-changing for us. Johnson: Let me make sure I have my numbers right. In the Carson City greenfield facility, you're looking at potentially two to three times the output of the Bay Area with about half the staff. Does that put Voyager at the center of it? How is that changing your staffing? Kottke: ree things are in play here. First, we have a blank slate building to layout for max- imum efficiency and automation in nearly every operation. Second, we've leveraged Voy- ager. We have 35 engineers on our India team, and that allows us to do much of the prebuild— the build readiness stuff—in Voyager so that with all the programs, the manufacturing pro- cess instructions (MPI), they can have every- thing done. We can just drop it in place in Car- son City . Finally, Carson City will not be doing the five-piece NPI jobs. at is probably the big- gest reason for the reduced labor cost. If I'm running higher quantities, I don't need the crazy headcount like I do for the five-piece jobs that I run through Santa Clara. e auto- mation and the Voyager improvements are the major factors in why Carson City is different. Johnson: at makes a lot of sense, optimizing Carson City to its strengths. Kottke: Yes. One of the basic changes is a dou- ble-sided line set up in Carson City to run larger production. ere are no carts, no peo- ple moving boards back and forth, and that allows a lot more throughput. If we had to, we could still break them off and run them as two separate lines. I guess it's more like 90% of the rest of the world for production, right? In Santa Clara, the lines are single-sided, meaning I run the job, flip it, bring it back to the front of the line, and run it back through. at's because I run a lot of NPI jobs, and I don't have enough parts to split for both a topside and a bottom side run. Overall, there might be 50–60% of the commonality between top and bottom so that you just run it on one double-sided line in Carson City . We're unique here in Santa Clara; Carson City is more like the rest of the production CM world. With the addition of Voyager and some cool automation, we'll be even more efficient. Johnson: It sounds to me like you're staffing up with well-trained engineering jobs rather than operator jobs. Kottke: ere's currently more engineering in Santa Clara because of the NPI focus, and then we move the work to Carson City . When we've proved out the process, when we've done all One of the basic changes is a double-sided line set up in Carson City to run larger production.