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50 SMT Magazine • October 2014 gone, and the remaining people are entering retirement age. So we really have to build that up to be able to produce a high level of quality in the US. Things like designing for assembly, designing for automated assembly—those kinds of courses used to be prevalent in institutions in the 1980s. As things went offshore, those kinds of courses have been eliminated. We have to rebuild our manufacturing infrastructure in addition to automation, to really start to bring a large segment of manufacturing base back to the United States. RA: Best practices that you can think of? JD: Let me give you an example from an in- teresting perspective: leveraging new technolo- gy. We have a customer project that we're doing for a new wearable device that will be coming to the market this holiday season. The customer came to us in June, and said they really wanted it to be an automated process, they want us to design some automated stations for them, and they need the first one delivered in August, and the balance of the line delivered in September for them to meet their ramp. Which is an aggressive target for automa- tion: delivering solutions in eight weeks—it is a tall order. To add to the complexity, they said "Oh, by the way, we really won't have parts for you until before the day you are go- ing to ship the first line," which makes it very difficult. So what we did is take the latest CAD mod- els and use 3D printers to print those parts. We can build the automation around it, and get very close to the final solution. We're doing that concurrently as the product was being fi- nalized and stabilized. Therefore, when we get the final parts, we'll get very close to a solution that works as opposed to waiting to start the design until we got those parts. I think that is an example of how new tech- nologies like 3D printing are enabling us to do concurrent engineering to make solutions— which would not be possible three or four years ago without that kind of technology. RA: Do you think robotics will replace hu- man workers in an assembly line? JD: We don't look at it that way. To us, we look at process stations, and we evaluate the best way from a cost, quality, and flexibility stand- point to put that together. I don't personally see a future where we have a lights out automated factory; I look at a future where we have a high degree of interchangeability between people and robotics stations. As far as I can see, I think that's the model. As we look at our business conditions, and the flexibility that we need to have for our cus- tomers and our shareholders, it's important for Jabil to have a flexible manufacturing model. Given that, we need a lot of interchangeabil- ity between manual stations and automated stations; what will make sense to automate in one production line, and what will make sense to have in another one, and vice versa. I don't see robots replacing people. I see some stations being automated, some stations being manual. RA: What are your thoughts on Industry 4.0? JD: I think in concept, we all want the in- terconnected factory. The idea is that every- thing will be working on the same informa- tion backbone. At a conceptual level, I think it makes perfect sense. But whether Industry 4.0 is going to be the answer, I guess I can't say for sure yet. Conceptually, we all love that. Depending on the players who do it and get- ting the support will really be the key to how successful it will be. RA: What is your long term outlook for your industry? JD: What we see certainly is miniaturization, but more integration. I think we are going to see more and more integration of electronics into devices, and processes that allow us to in- tegrate those devices together without the clas- sical printed circuit board. I think the circuit board will start to merge closer and closer with the typical product itself to eliminate the cost and shrink packaging and so forth. Another trend we are seeing is more flexible devices; flex circuits, combination of flex circuits and rigid circuits. smt FLeXibLe manuFacturing continues ArTiCLE