Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/948150
10 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2018 years ago, which were all OK in their day— before the modern digital needs of customers was conceived, IoT data is now available that can support the most ambitious of Industry 4.0 projects," he says. Aegis Software built the CFX toolkit that was fully donated to the IPC and the industry without cost or license. In my recent interview with Nancy Jaster, the manager of design process at IPC, she said that she hopes to be able to demonstrate at the IPC APEX EXPO show floor how simple and easy it is to use the CFX messag- ing library and the transport mechanism AMQP 1.0— the building blocks of the CFX—to run the machines. She also hopes to be able to release the CFX standard this year. In this Industry 4.0 vision, we are entering an era where we see new technologies trans- forming the look, systems and processes of what we consider as a modern factory. This CFX demonstration at IPC APEX EXPO 2018 is just that—imagine having these vendors integrated together towards one common manufacturing goal. A true industry evolution. Factory in a Box Another interesting piece of news that came out recently was the "Factory in a Box" concept created by a group of 12 electronics industry players, led by Nokia, showing how electronics manufacturers can stay ahead of the demands of Industry 4.0 through agile production. The concept aimed to build a single electron- ics manufacturing line using cargo contain- ers that can be moved to locations as demand dictates. The concept will be enabled by Indus- try 4.0, including cloud-based solutions, robot- ics and new electronic manufacturing IoT solu- tions. The project took a step forward late last year at Nokia's Digital Creativity Lab open- ing in Munich, where a cargo container with a collaborative robot assembly station was packed, moved to a new location by truck, then restarted within hours at the new location where small Lego cars were assembled, prov- ing the precision of the machines. The final step in the proof of concept was achieved on February 9, 2018, when full elec- tronic manufacturing of a printed circuit board and robotic assembly and testing took place. The group includes Nokia (wireless commu- nication for the solution, as well as experience in deploying Industry 4.0 solutions in its own operations), Beta Layout (PCB support), DHL (logis - tics/transportation), Fuji (SMT manufacturing tech- nology), HARTING (RFID solution for tracking, tracing and production control), Isel (workstation support), Isoloc (motion softening solution), MTEK Consulting (robotics), Mycronic (high-speed jet printing and jet dispensing), Re h m T h e r m a l S y s t e m s (PCB soldering), Viscom (optical inspection), and 42Q (cloud-based manufac- turing execution system). They plan to demon- strate this full capability at the Hanover Messe in April 2018. This Month's Issue This month's lineup of articles in SMT007 Magazine features some of the new technol- ogies that would enable the transformation of the processes in the electronics assembly industry. From cleaning to software to stencil design and cloud computing, these elements are key components that will surely help take the electronics assembly process to the next level, one process at a time. Next month, we'll look at what's driving the automotive electronics industry. Stay tuned! SMT007 Stephen Las Marias is managing editor of SMT007 Magazine. He has been a technology editor for more than 14 years covering electronics, components, and industrial automation systems.