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February 2017 • SMT Magazine 77 BRINGING SMT ASSEMBLY IN-HOUSE have indeed come true, and the incorporation of SMT into their in-house capabilities has been so seamless that he believes he has reduced his direct labor cost to about $2 or $3 per assembly. Of course, this figure doesn't include any man- ufacturing overhead but, compared to what he had been paying, his savings are considerable. Verbos saw himself in an almost identi- cal situation with the subcontract assembly of the boards for his synthesizer modules. "For the prices I was paying just for labor (anywhere from $30 to $50 per board) and knowing ex- actly what my raw materials costs were, not to mention the slow lead times I was experiencing, I was totally convinced that I could easily justi- fy the purchase of assembly equipment and pay for it in a very short period of time." Like Wagner at Sensorcon, Verbos purchased an SMT assembly line from Manncorp (manual stencil printer, 8000 CPH pick and place system, and batch reflow oven). "Everyone was telling me I was crazy," he recalls. "They told me the only way I'd be able to make the equipment pay for itself was to take on additional work to keep the equipment running 24/7." But like Wagner, Verbos didn't see it that way and, in his opinion, he has proven himself right. "We've saved so much in production costs, I believe our equip- ment paid for itself in the first six months. Why should I care if the equipment occasionally sits idle until we're ready for a production run? It would be nice if the equipment were running all the time because that would only mean that we're selling more. But right now, our priority is being able to fill orders and meet deliveries, and we're doing that, even if our manufactur- ing cost isn't the absolute lowest it could pos- sibly be. What used to take six to eight months from a subcontractor can now be produced in- house in six to eight weeks." To meet throughput requirements, Camp- bell Company purchased a fully-automated SMT line (high-precision inline stencil printer, 10,500 CPH pick and place system, and a five- zone convection reflow oven) for just under $250,000. Due to their decades of experience in dealing with EMS subcontractors, their ob- jectives from the start were less about reducing production costs than they were about reduc- ing inventory and improving lead times. While Tate, Sims, and Hill all agree that their equip- ment probably paid for itself in the first 12- 18 months, they are almost indifferent about payback. Their enthusiasm is evident, however, in their willingness to talk about the significant impact that in-house SMT assembly has had on their entire operation. "We're doing some incredible things here," said Tate. "Bringing our PCB assembly in-house was a very good decision." The Bottom Line SMT equipment, by its very nature, is in- herently fast. After all, in addition to smaller, standardized package sizes and higher-density circuits, ease of automation and higher speed assembly have always been trademarks of the technology. But the fact of the matter is that, outside of Asia, the vast majority of SMT assem- bly equipment throughout the world is under- utilized. In general, SMT is so cost-effective that when manufacturers first start to consider pur- chasing their own equipment, placement speeds typically throw them off track. For example, a Figure 8: Campbell Company's fully automated SMT assembly line includes Manncorp's high- precision AP430 inline stencil printer, the three-head MC-389 pick and place system, and a CR-5000 convection reflow oven. With a full complement of component feeders and connect- ing conveyors, the line bore a price tag of nearly $250K, yet Campbell management believes it paid for itself in 12–18 months.