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34 SMT Magazine • December 2014 try 4.0" initiative defines, where products "self- route" to assembly stations, is an idea that certainly satisfies the end goal of short-term flexibility. It brings up the question of capac- ity and productivity, however, when compar- ing mass high-volume production to what is effectively just an automated "build to order." This is where the intel- ligence that governs the opera- tion is critical. In the complex world of SMT, however, we know as a result of our di- rect experience that as flex- ibility increases, productivity declines. Even though SMT machines are already very flexible, there are certain in- trinsic elements related to the hundreds or even thousands of instances of SMT materials that are needed to make each electronic product. Solutions to solve this issue, such as by putting more machines in line so as to have enough ma- terial feeder locations avail- able to be able to produce any product at any time, has been tried already. The result was that for each product variant, very significant time is lost as each machine and line and optimization was severely com- promised. This model cannot work because of the inevitable reduction of capacity and the decrease of productivity. To get a truly flexibility solution, we have to look beyond the machines and lines, toward planning. 4-dimensional SmT Optimization With today's SMT planning tools, however, a chicken-and-egg situation exists because shop- floor planning tools cannot consider complex material grouping requirements of SMT for effi- ciency, and SMT-based tools cannot perform de- cisions related to the selection of products into groups according to shop-floor delivery needs. Both end up being separate steps, or categories, of optimization. Doing either step first places restrictions through assumptions handed-off to of the majority of the distribution cost can be done by moving the factory close to the target market. The critical issue is whether the reduced costs of distribution can exceed any increase in the cost of manufacturing. On-shore labor will be more expensive, but today, this is a dimin- ishing factor of the overall product price with improvements in pro- cess automation. Just a couple of Problems Any move to onshoring will not happen overnight, any more than the move off- shore did. There are some key issues to deal with. The first is related to materials and key components. With the ma- jority of manufacturing cur- rently offshore, most of the very high-volume raw mate- rial sources are also offshore. It is possible to ship the raw materials in, and it may even be more cost-efficient as most raw materials are common to many products and assem- bly manufacturers, especially with the help of distributors. The change happens, how- ever, once onshore raw materi- als manufacturers get back into gear. Many of these companies still exist, as some manufacturing nev- er went over to lower cost areas, significantly suppliers to the safety critical areas of aerospace, military, some medical, and automotive. The key question is whether there is a criti- cal mass remaining to once again ramp up vol- ume for regular electronics manufacturing. An- other issue is how to change the manufacturing operation into one that is flexible enough to respond to potentially volatile changes in "lo- cal" customer delivery demand. This is where our 4th dimension advanced manufacturing control software comes in. manufacturing Software challenges The principle of an intelligent factory en- gine, such as that which the German "Indus- THE ESSEnTiAl pionEEr'S SurvivAl guiDE THe FUTUre OF SmT: WeLcOme TO THe 4 TH dImeNSION continues Even though SMT machines are already very flexible, there are certain intrinsic elements related to the hundreds or even thousands of instances of SMT materials that are needed to make each electronic product. Solu- tions to solve this issue, such as by putting more machines in line so as to have enough material feeder locations available to be able to produce any product at any time, has been tried already. " "