Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/921680
16 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2018 labor side. Having said that, you're always concerned about efficiency, but it's not like it was in the old days because labor, as each year goes by, is increasingly a smaller percentage of your spend. At least, in my world." On the PCB side, especially in the flex area, Nargi-Toth says they look at automation as a way of removing the typical handling issues and increase product yield and production effi- ciency. "As Matt said, handling can sometimes lead to scrap. And while automation has its own set of problems, it is more controlled and predictable," she explains. "At the end of the day, handling is critical throughout the manu- facturing operations. Removing handling- related scrap improves yields and in-turn that improves efficiencies and the overall competi- tive position for the company." "And just to amplify what Kathy just said, anytime that we introduce automation, it's more about reducing variability, and increasing quality, reliability, reducing scrap, than it has anything to do with reducing labor content," says Turpin. "So that would probably be the main message I can suggest. It's automation for reducing variability and increasing reliabil- ity, not reducing labor." No Longer Customer Driven The decision to acquire new equipment was once driven by customer requirements, but not anymore. At least, not as much as it used to be, according to Turpin. "Take the three periods of an EMS: First is what I call the good old days, when you could just chug along with the same set of capital for a decade or more. The second phase after that was really when it wasn't, 'Build it, and they will come' but 'if you get a program, you get a customer, then you go out and you buy the capital equipment to support it.' Now we've moved away from that to where you really have to get out in front of it. Generally, you have to get out in front of it with a technology roadmap, with some level of R&D. Because by the time a customer comes in with an oppor- tunity, even though the equipment lead time may be four or six weeks, to do a thoughtful evaluation process takes a lot more than that. The capex is around automating a process— you can't just introduce a new piece of capi- tal equipment to your process without doing a thoughtful process development, and analyz- ing it, training, making sure that you followed your due diligence to introducing that new process. By the time you stack up all those activities, the customer generally is going to wait if you're doing it on a wait-and-buy basis. Having said that, we have one customer rela- tionship where we do share our technology roadmap. We do have visibility into their engi- neering groups, and we do get to see where their head is at in terms of what the next thing may be, so we can pull from that. So, it's not wetting your finger and sticking it up in the air to see where the industry is heading. We can be a little bit targeted from a customer- needs standpoint, but we don't always have that luxury." Advice for Designers For Nargi-Toth, the best thing designers can do is engage early. "They need to engage early with the manufacturer. We can help design - ers best when we are brought on early and become part of the project team. It is important because the designer together with the board fabricator and assembler should be assessing the manufacturing trade-offs associated with new designs. Many times, the designers do not fully understand manufacturing constraints and if they wait to address them after a design is completed it will lead to delays. Designers often use simple DFM analysis as a first pass, but this approach is not going to fully address Removing handling-related scrap improves yields and in-turn that improves efficiencies and the overall competitive position for the company.