We encourage everyone to visit an electronics manufacturing site and speak with process experts. This is the ultimate design for the manufacturing approach.ĭuring PCB layout design, it is important to consider manufacturing challenges. When thinking about manufacturing, he would decide how the product would look, aiming to create something useful without wasting materials. My grandfather was a wood craftsman who would take a piece of wood and envision how he would work with it. The balance is lost when we fail to check the product design before accepting it.

An unoptimized panel design, missing fiducials, or unbalanced top and bottom distribution can destroy production efficiency. However, the biggest factor that can disrupt this harmony is THE PRODUCT itself. An electronics manufacturing site with identical SMT lines will have high Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE), and there will be no reason to worry about efficiency issues. This brings numerous advantages, from the quotation phase to machine utilization. The goal is to have the same type of production equipment throughout the entire organization. I recall a situation when someone ordered conveyors for the SMT line that had a different color than the rest of the machines, and it caused quite a drama.

Companies are cautious about purchasing new machines without good reason. Most of the time, the accepted machine types are described in an internal standard document that the worldwide organization follows. This reduces breakdown time and maintenance costs. When a Siemens type Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) is the only accepted option at a production site, over time, several automation engineers will become proficient in programming it. However, if the machines are different, the spare parts inventory will increase. For instance, having one conveyor motor as a spare part would be sufficient. If all the pick-and-place machines on the site are made by the same vendor, it might be possible to keep one piece of each commonly used part in stock as spare parts.

The cost of preventive and corrective maintenance is lower when using the same type of machines. In addition to the lack of experience, the availability of free spare parts also plays a role. Often, personnel are trained for a specific platform, and introducing a different type of machine can disrupt the production flow. However, changing machine vendors is not easy. We seek a balance between the best machines and their optimum price. In electronics manufacturing, we strive to use the latest and most advanced equipment for our production lines.

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