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32 SMT007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2025 F E AT U R E Q & A w i t h H u g o Le i te a n d J o ã o Ro q u e, C r i t i c a l M a n u fa ct u r i n g Why Digitalization Is Critical to Manufacturing C ritical Manufacturing, based in Porto, Portugal, delivers MES systems for electronics manu- facturing. Naturally, they see integrations regularly. Hugo Leite, industry manager for electronics/SMT, and João Roque, architect and advocate for auto- mation and connectivity, share some of their inte- gration insight in this written Q&A. Why should digitalization be a priority today? SMT lines are among the most complex manufactur- ing environments. Each stage produces valuable pro- cess and quality data. When systems are fragmented, this information is rarely contextualized, leaving companies limited to basic descriptive reporting. The lack of integration has tangible conse- quences on the shop floor. Changeovers take lon- ger because of manual material verification and pro- gram validation, requiring double-checks and intro- ducing opportunities for setup errors. Subtle signs of process drift remain invisible when machine and inspection data are not correlated in real time. Root- cause analysis becomes reactive and time-con- suming, forcing engineers to reconstruct events from siloed logs after defects have already propa- gated across multiple boards. Companies that rely on manual logs, spreadsheets, or isolated machine software remain constrained by these blind spots. Delaying digitalization compounds challenges on several levels. Persisting with manual or frag- mented practices makes it harder to standard- ize data, which undermines reliable reporting and keeps organizations locked in descriptive-only ana-