Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1512467
66 SMT007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2023 happening and focus your team? e first question in every meeting should be, "What problem are we here to solve?" e second is, "What do we know about this problem?" Stop the meeting if you don't have a prob- lem to solve, and politely ask people to leave if they can't add value to the discussion. Opti- mization requires risk from leadership and overcoming fear of the unknown of changes. It's faster to make 100 small changes than one significant, preplanned change. Why? It's the upfront emotional investment and pride. You must be willing to try and fail, but fail quickly and cheaply, adjust, and try again. at's how humans learn. Have you worked with automated equipment or robotics in electronics assembly? If so, can you share your experience and any success- ful implementations? One of the first under- takings here at Matric Group was to solve the challenge of speeding up component handling accurately and efficiently for the surface mount technology (SMT) place- ment lines. e overall handling is simple: ful- filling the BOM that is typically 250–300 differ- ent components on 10 to 15 changeovers a day on time and accurately. e complexity comes from equipment for medical, aerospace, and oth- ers to have complete lot tracking and moisture controls on components. At Matric Group, those requirements have a combination of 3,750 reels, trays, tubes, and strips being picked and set up daily; 3,700 more staged in front on the SMT lines or actively consumed; and the final 3,750 are being actively removed from the equipment with remaining quantiles being a stock return. If the CFO is reading this and feeling uneasy, it is because there are 5.6 million components hanging out in the work-in-process. Solu- tion: We partnered with Juki Storage Systems as well as Nordson's Assure X-ray counter to meet our requirements, which are also seam- lessly expandable. is project reduced labor by 85%, and we completed the ROI in less than one year. What strategies do you employ to ensure the timely availability of components and materials for the assembly line, reducing downtime and production delays? e onset of COVID and the two-year inter- national supply chain disaster have realigned my vision and the practicability of just-in-time inventory. e "ready" and "set" seem way more important than the "go." One of the big- gest misleading statements is "all parts here" (APH). is doesn't mean you can release and build. Every ERP system has known programming faults that can hold up the job release. I have always deployed visual manage- ment boards to overcome the trapdoors and create a robust material review program (MRP) with one standard rule: No one gets to just come to the meeting and report the news. e pro- gram must require all bottlenecks to be solved by the key shareholders in each department. e weekly meeting needs to be with customer service, sales, schedul- ing, QA, manufacturing engineers, and top- level leadership. e second lesson learned in the last three years is to control your destiny. Internal and external sourcing are preferable to dual external sourcing, but both are better than external single sourcing. Optimization requires risk from leadership and overcoming fear of the unknown of changes.