March, 2013
www.us-tech.com
Page 39
Partnering to Better Provide TTC Solutions to the Industry
By François Monette, co-President and co-Founder, Cogiscan, Inc.
isting systems to provide factory-wide Trace, Trace and Control (TTC) solutions. The company is com- mitted to the development and continuous im- provement of solutions to TTC materials and tools on and off the shop floor with the focus of provid- ing the most advanced, innovative technology to customers. Recently, Cogiscan began working with Juki Automation Systems (JAS) and the partner- ship is proving successful for both companies as well as their respective customers. Juki and Cogiscan have been
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strategic partners for 10 years now. The relationship began in 2002 when Juki AG approached Cogiscan to im- prove its Intelligent Feeder System (IFS). The prior intelligent feeder hardware used electrical contacts and was replaced with the Cogiscan patent- ed RFID smart feeder technology. This contactless method proved
to be much more reliable and flexible, and the improved product became the IFS-X. Eventually, the original IFS software was replaced with the Cogis- can software and this version was named IFS-X2. Since then Juki has been selling IFS-X2 throughout Eu- rope and the Amer icas. This option has become more and more popular over the years because of the industry trends toward improved quality, lower cost and traceability. Recently, Cogiscan has been
working with Juki’s headquarters in Japan to integrate the IFS-X2 tech- nology in new machines and feeders, direct from the factory. This latest evolution, IFS-NX is being released in Asia and the rest of the world. Both companies are actively working to de- fine the roadmap of future intelligent machines and advanced manufactur- ing software. A company like Juki could very
well have decided to develop all soft- ware internally. Instead, however, it decided to work with strategic part- ners like Cogiscan for several good reasons.
First is the question of expertise
— no company can be the best at everything. Juki focuses on develop- ing world-class machines and the as- sociated machine software while Co- giscan focuses on developing world- class TTC software that connects ma- chines and materials with the rest of the factory. When the two products are tightly integrated, customers ben- efit from the best of both worlds. This collaboration enables both companies to develop better products faster and at a lower cost, thus maintaining a leading edge over the competition. In a typical situation, Juki will
first sell one or several placement machines equip ped with the IFS-X2 option. Cus tomers soon appreciate and come to depend on the higher level of automation provided by this solution. At this point, they are ready to look at other op portunities to gain a similar level of control in other parts of their SMT line and beyond. This is when Cogis can comes
into direct contact with the Juki cus- tomer. Since the Cogiscan TTC server is already installed and operational, it is only a matter of adding more appli- cation software. All new modules inte- grate directly with the existing IFS-X2
See us at NEPCON China Booth 1F02
ogiscan partners with leading equipment manufacturers and electronics assemblers to create solutions that can integrate with ex-
system as the default configuration. The IFS-X2 option has been popular through-
out the industry. Its success comes from key fea- tures. For one thing, there is a significant trend in the industry toward achieving higher levels of au- tomation. The objective is to reduce cost while in- creasing quality. With IFS-X 2, this objective is achieved by
Contactless tracking adds component usage data to your production data.
knowing precisely and in real-time where each reel and matrix tray is located in the factory. The sys- tem optimizes every step of the assembly process,
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