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50 SMT Magazine • September 2014 priority, but the evolution is partly due to the desire to improve quality and reduce costs for products with increasing complexity. For exam- ple, until recently a respiratory inhaler would have consisted of only mechanical parts, but now electronics are embedded in the product, improving functionality. As a result of the in- creased complexity, automated lines are being developed to manage costs and produce devices with extremely high quality. Industrial sectors, such as clean technology and automotive electronics, are also exploring how automation can help them get products to market at lower costs and with better quality. Regardless of the industry segment, applying automation for products manufactured in high volumes can result in substantially reduced costs. SMT: Conversely, which operations are dif- ficult to automate? Howell: Automated assembly can be used to produce new products or replace an exist- ing manual manufacturing process, but not all products will benefit from automation. When evaluating which products are a good fit for au- tomation, there are numerous variables, includ- ing financial analysis, time to market, product design and operations considerations. SMT: How quick is the return on investment? Howell: A $6 million investment in capital equipment, designed to output over five mil- lion units per annum, with an ultimate savings of $1 per unit in reduced labor costs, would of- fer a return on investment (ROI) in less than 15 months. When comparing the ROI on manual vs. automated assembly, here are some other factors to consider: • Time available before start of series production • Number of product variants • Work content per assembly or subassembly • Advantages of repeatability and process control • Manual handling of parts and impact on product quality • Labor costs (total work content of operations, techs and engineers) • Cost of capital equipment • Running costs of equipment (maintenance, spare parts, etc.) • Equipment flexibility and reusability • Life cycle remaining after installation and release of equipment • Raw materials in facilities and reduced inventory turns SMT: What risks and challenges must be considered when a decision has been finalized to automate certain assembly processes? Howell: To begin analyzing the feasibility of an automation project, OEMs need to consid- er production volumes, labor content and the time needed to develop automated production equipment. Typically, annual volume targets should be in the hundreds of thousands or millions of units because of the financial investment re- quired to set up an automated line. The analy- sis includes the takt time (time per production step), which is the target rate of output from the manufacturing system. Depending on planned shift patterns, for an annual output of five million units, a target takt time of six sec- onds may be required (or one unit produced ev- ery six seconds). The cumulative process time, requiring the presence of a person, drives the operating direct labor cost for a manual opera- tion; in contrast, a fully automated equivalent operation has a reduced or eliminated direct labor cost. Additionally, part-tolerance stack-up anal- ysis and the inclusion of design features for ease of component assembly serve to "de- risk" the implementation of automated as- sembly solutions. Manual assembly processes are much more forgiving of component toler- ance issues. For example, plastic components that are slightly warped pose no problems for manual assembly. However, these same com- ponents may not be usable with an automat- ed component feeder or with pick and place equipment. The worst-case scenario would be damage to the assembly equipment due to a part collision. feATure SANmINA: AUtOmAtION IN prODUCtION LINeS continues