July, 2016
www.us-
tech.com Are We Ready for Reshoring? By Neil Adams, Circuit Check, Inc. T
he long standing business model of manufac- turing, “cheaper labor solves all bottom-line profit challenges,” is now being challenged.
Today, electronic product manufacturing planted directly in the local region of focus seems to be a more healthy business model. In a report by The Reshoring Initiative (
www.reshorenow.org), the organization lists 11 reasons why corporations have made the decision to move jobs to regional lo- cations, specifically in the U.S. Among them are benefits to lead time, higher product quality and consistency, branding image, IP-compliance risks, and local tax incentives. Other reasons include the availability of improved automation and technolo- gy, production cost equivalency and higher productivity. The Reshoring Initiative’s re-
port lists 1,300 companies that are reshoring, along with over 300 case studies. The list includes Fortune 500 companies, since they garner news headlines, but the majority are small-to-midsize businesses that have found the need to bring their manufacturing closer. Digging through the case studies, one real- izes the complexity of shifting a production strategy as manufactur- ing technologies evolve. It seems that many business executives now recognize that manufacturing bot- tom-line cost-efficiency has many factors, not only human labor costs.
Test Operator Efficiency Improvements
How can companies with
North American based factories, that have test and validation func- tions, apportion their electronic manufacturing departments so that labor is the smallest component of
Many business
executives now recognize that manufacturing
bottom-line cost-efficiency has many factors, not only human labor costs.
its efficiency model? One item is to look at the handling required in testing printed circuit board assem- blies and then to determine which functions are non-value added. Any time the process flow can remove one non-value added process, it be- comes more efficient. Operations managers need not
look far to see non-value added mo- tions. Watching an in-circuit test operator from a lower-volume process flow try to adapt to a high- er-volume process flow it is easy to see several steps that can be elimi- nated. Companies should keep track of their processes and use a barcode scanner, observing how long it takes an operator to scan the serial numbers of each board test- ed. Simply mounting the scanner to the in-circuit test fixture reduces handling time by three to four sec- onds. This ensures PCB scan re- peatability and allows for easy tracking of PCBs that require retest. If the operator must close the
fixture lid and press a test button for each run, this is obviously an in- efficient action. This simple motion adds a few additional seconds to the handling time. Eliminate this time waste by using an auto-open/close feature on the test fixture. When
Select Coat® SL-940
the operator loads a PCB into the fixture and presses the start button, the lid auto closes, bar- code is auto-scanned and testing starts. At the end of test, the test fixture auto-opens and presents the PCB to be removed. Between the two steps com- bined, with a 30 second test and 10 second load/un- load time, a conservative savings estimate is 6 sec- onds, resulting in 12 percent greater efficiency. Other operator motion time-saving opportuni-
In-circuit fixture with pneumatic auto-open and close.
Whether large or small, we’ve got you covered
ties, short of total automation, may include auto- mated insertion of mating connectors. Cables or DIMM cards, rather than the error-prone and time- consuming manual connection, can prevent circuit board damage from occurring after the test. Auto-
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Page 33
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ConexisTM CX-3040
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