Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1508761
38 SMT007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2023 Johnson: What are the challenges on the horizon for you? Vora: Component sizes are a big deal. I hate to keep saying this, but it will be all about the data. How well can this system integrate to make the data more aware and valuable so it can guide all these different pieces and decisions? Planning and scheduling is a very difficult task, knowing that you can build a board on the right date at the right time. We might look at the schedule and see that these two other boards on the schedule have many common components and they're due a little bit later, so why don't we pull those up and build them all together? I think that's where AI will play a role. To do something like that, though, the data needs to be avail- able so a "mother" can m a k e t h e d e c i s i o n s . How many streams of data can you st itch together to understand factory awareness, and what do you do next with that data? By buy ing brand- new AOI solutions, we're already think- ing f ive year s ahead. We're look ing at the m o s t a d v a n c e d 3 D s y s t e m s , t h e m o s t advanced technology; we might go down to the 7-micron level. I think we're already think- ing that way, and that's why we're going for identical brand-new equipment across all lines on the same day. To Darren's point, as soon as we start stan- dardizing, we can hit the ground running much quicker on any next endeavor: Create a solid foundation that can handle quicker growth. Johnson: Are you inferring that the software extensibility for your inspection equipment is very important to you? It's not so much the hardware or the specifics of the camera, but the ability to integrate to your current systems and extend them. Vora: Yes, and that will be key. It's the thing that stitches it all together. One thing to mention is speed to program. Two companies we're look- ing at have two new AI engines that help speed up programming. What used to take two hours now takes 30 minutes. ings like that will be a big deal. People talk about AI, and there are a few good use cases already out there. Matties: Any final advice for someone looking at their test strategy? Vora: We are work- ing on one piece of a u t o m a t i o n i n o u r testing department. I'm sure many of the major companies have a l r e a d y d o n e t h i s , but we're high-mix, low-volume, which makes it more diffi- cult to automate. We are working on auto- mation, and we have an automation engi- neer who's good at CAD. We're building fixtures that attach to a six-axis robot with pogo pins. ose pogo pins are wired into a computer. We're automating programming and test because we do a lot of programming test day-to-day. It's an endeavor that we're really interested in. e challenge is how to do this in a high-mix, low-volume environment. Johnson: Well, thank you. Vora: I appreciate you guys looking at us. SMT007 Planning and scheduling is a very difficult task, knowing that you can build a board on the right date at the right time.