Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/647109
March 2016 • SMT Magazine 75 MEntor graPhICS' orEn Manor IntErvIEw Manor: Yes, and we can provide you more guidelines to make that decision. We can give you more data to support the decision. But at the end of the day, we need somebody who has know-how and industry and manufacturing ex- perience to decide, "Is my stencil bad, or is the printer off?" Twenty years ago test engineers were these unique set of guys who had a lot of ex- perience in test and they would only do test. Most companies today can't afford that. Cost is driving them to have the SMT guy also do the test. So now you lose knowledge. He is not this test guru he was 30 years ago, and that's when we really use our systems to try and help him. Because you know there is less knowledge. They are going to need operators who can do extensive SMT and test. That's why they cannot be the same experts we had 30 years ago. The machines are going to have to support the engineers and data is going to have to help them drive the decisions. But will we go to these autonomous lines running around and the hu- mans don't do anything? I don't know about that. Matties: Maybe 20 years down the road per- haps. But even right now, when we look at the labor pool that's available in the world, the spe- cialty knowledge isn't necessarily as much as a requirement as the IT which is a broader base to pull from. If someone understands systems, data and IT they're probably going to be a great oper- ator for your process that's embedded with 4.0. When you bring automation in you need fewer people as well. Manor: Yeah, you do. I agree with you. Even to- day when we go to service lines, we see a line in China where 10 people are managing the line. Then we go to a site in Germany and you see one. We see that where cost is a factor custom- ers are leaner and they have much less people around. So we know you don't really need all of these people, even today. And that's prob- ably going to evolve and continue that trend as I imagine that low-cost countries are going to adopt these kinds of techniques to be more cost effective. Matties: So the third benefit is lower total operat- ing costs. Faster to market, lower costs, fewer em- ployees to manage and smarter processes. What stops people from jumping on this bandwagon? Those seem like compelling benefits. Manor: First of all, some of this really requires a change of manufacturing. So it's not just adopt- ing an IT system and continuing to behave the same way. It's a behavioral change. Matties: That's a hard one. That's management. Manor: Management has to dictate. Matties: It's got to go from the top, right? Manor: Yeah, and also we need the buy-in from the operators. Otherwise they switch off the sys- tems. They work around the actual computers. Matties: Those are the ones that get fired. If man- agement's bought into it, they're not going to tol- erate that. Manor: Yes, but we've seen issues where we've tried to put verification systems into organiza- tions and there was a big rejection by operators because it takes more time or nobody trusts it. Then management has to be very strong and very active in mandating that. You need middle management also to understand this behavioral change. They have been doing something for 15 years, and now you come in and ask them to wait for a computer to tell them what's best. The other thing is the budget. You have to con- vince them that they have to spend this money. Matties: What are you looking at? Maybe a quar- ter of a million dollars or something like that for the system? Manor: Maybe a quarter up to a million if they want to really go with a much more extensive solution. It's not cheap but then again it's not a 10 or a $100 million investment. Matties: And someone who invests a quarter or half-million dollars, what sort of return on that in- vestment do they expect?