Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/924542
16 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2018 labor side. Having said that, you're always con- cerned 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 increasing product yield and production efficiency. "As Matt said, handling can some - times 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 manufacturing 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 when it wasn't, 'Build it, and they will come' but 'if you get a program, you get a cus - tomer, then you go out and you buy the capi- tal 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 opportunity, even though the equipment lead time may be four or six weeks, to do a thoughtful evaluation pro - cess takes a lot more than that. The capex is around automating a process—you can't just introduce a new piece of capital equipment to your process without doing a thoughtful pro - cess development, and analyzing it, training, making sure that you followed your due dili- gence to introducing that new process. By the time you stack up all those activities, the cus- tomer generally is going to wait if you're doing it on a w ait-and-buy basis. "Having said that, we have one customer re- lationship where we do share our technology roadmap. We do have visibility into their en- gineering 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 custom- er-needs standpoint, but we don't always have that luxury." Advice for Designers For Nargi-Toth, the best thing designers can do is start working with fabricators early in the design process. "They need to engage early with the manufacturer. We can help designers 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 man - ufacturing trade-offs associated with new de- signs. Many times, the designers do not fully under stand manufacturing constraints and if they wait to address them after a design is com - pleted it will lead to delays. Designers often use simple DFM analysis as a first pass, but this Removing handling-related scrap improves yields and in-turn that improves efficiencies and the overall competitive position for the company.