Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/674146
24 SMT Magazine • May 2016 line to line is actually done by a few compa- nies as they try to alter line capabilities and per- formance, but this creates associated problems with power, air, conveyors, positioning, setup, and operational changes, not to mention space allocation. Some SMT machines are more mod- ular and allow additional units or heads to be added to a standard base to adjust the through- put. Considering all of the other resources on the line, however, the effectiveness overall is limited. Instead of moving the equipment, how about moving the products through the reallo- cation to different lines, much like the flexibil- ity that the larger EMS and OEM companies en- joy? The issue is that the equipment and opera- tion has been linked to the product by contract so that moving the production to another line configuration requires a revised agreement and recertification of the operation because the pro- cesses, such as SMT machines, are likely to be different models with different capabilities and even may be sourced from different vendors. Application of the principles of Industry 4.0 are designed to avoid all of these issues. One way in which the approach could be made with Industry 4.0 could be: 1. The PCB production areas would be split to separate the common process area, such as the SMT placement machines, from the prod- uct-dependent process areas, such as functional test. 2. Each of the common process production lines in the factory would have similar capabili- ties that provide different levels of performance, which could include a selection of machines from different platforms or vendors. 3. An automated transport system would connect the output of every common line to a "bus" so that any PCB can be automatically routed to the corresponding dedicated product processing line. This raises some interesting questions about how the operation would work. First, with all of the lines possessing similar capabilities, any product for any customer could be built on any line at any time. The technical requirements for this to happen is to have an engineering pro- cess preparation system that can quickly cre- ate qualified machine programs for any specific product on any capable line, with the mini- mum of lead-time. Because lines may consist of machines from different platforms or even ven- dors, third-party tools that work around a com- mon qualified product model and parts shapes library, with simulation of machine operation and the ability to output complete machine programs including materials libraries, are best suited to this task. This introduces a high degree of product portability that allows products to be assigned as required to any capable line configuration. The production plan tool can then take the en- gineering information, including the line op- tions and delivery requirements, the machine timing simulations, and materials information to allocate the overall production to the lines in the most efficient way that meets the various delivery requirements. The use of Lean material logistics enables rapid changes in plan to be executed without the need to return large amounts of excess ma- terials to the warehouse. The advantage with this approach is that, rather than having the 20% line overhead on each individual line ba- sis, the overhead can be shared and smoothed over all lines. In a similar way, rather than fac- ing the reduction in the production rate as de- livery demand varies, the product can be moved to a line that more closely matches the delivery requirement while allowing it to work at higher productivity levels. EMS RulES oF autoMation & Roi " the use of lean material logistics enables rapid changes in plan to be executed without the need to return large amounts of excess materials to the warehouse. "