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24 SMT Magazine • March 2016 SMT shop-floor in the most optimized way. It can produce more efficient plans for optimized SMT machine programming, including special- ization options of material grouping and the use of trolleys. This creates a flexible and dy- namic factory operation that evolves continu- ously as production demands change. Only in this environment can automation work according to expectations, fulfilling the return on investment criteria without simply resolving one issue at the expense of another and hiding it away. Such software that is avail- able today has been shown to increase absolute productivity in high-mix operations by more than 30%. This is a really important metric in manufacturing, although the difficulty has al- ways been the understanding of what complex processes, such as multi-lane, multi-module, and multi-head machines should be capable of as a benchmark to be measured against. How- ever, the detail of the process-timing model for productivity measurement purposes only needs to reflect the machine technology; it does not have to go to the depth that an SMT optimi- zation algorithm would go to squeeze out the last percentage point of line performance. After all, the differences in the losses of machine pro- gram efficiency are what is needed to compare different product allocations and feeder setup methodologies. Standardization is required to move automation forward The critical element missing in the automa- tion market for PCB assembly is the standard- ization of communication for all machines and processes. All of the visibility and computer- ization discussed here is based on the ability to gather real-time information from all of the shop-floor processes. This information needs to include process run-time, the start of process- ing, the end of processing, operational mode, and any times for which any added value op- erational parts of the process are waiting or are stopped for any reason, including the rea- son code. Material consumption and spoilage against each reference designator and other ma- terial-related events such as material exchang- es, splicing events, alternate feeder, and test re- sults inspection images are also needed, all of which combine to provide the computerization of planning, production flow, and supply chain management and traceability. Communication between processes also needs to be bi-directional so that machine oper- ation can be controlled and modified according to issues such as minor material shape changes between suppliers, x-y placement drift, etc., all of which could be implemented as automated corrections without requiring the SMT ma- chines to stop or require operator intervention. This would ensure higher productivity, reduced maintenance, and improved first-pass yield. These examples of computerization applica- tions exist today, but they are severely limited to specific applications where proprietary soft- ware development creates specific customiza- tion. On a standard communication platform, these functions would be available on any com- bination of vendors' equipment. What is needed in the industry is a com- plete and usable communication standard that would reflect all of these needs, that could be applied to any machine and process, whether automated or manual (which can still become bottlenecks for automated processes), so that normalized data could be exchanged between processes from any vendor or of any type. And it could be used in the various forms of shop- floor computerization such as those suggest- ed by Industry 4.0 or Smart Factory 1.0. Now would be the time to include this requirement in the specification of automated machine pur- chases. The true future-proofing that is needed is not so much the proprietary solutions that a select single machine environment can offer in isolation; rather, it is the ability for automa- tion to fit into the smart factory or to embrace Industry 4.0. This is your guide to buying auto- mation. SmT michael Ford is senior marketing development manager with Mentor Graphics Corporation Valor division. To read past columns, or to contact the author, click here. thE buyEr'S guIdE to autoMatIon