March, 2018
www.us-tech.com
Transitioning the Factory from “Smart” to “Intelligent”
By Bill Cardoso, Ph.D., President, Creative Electron, Inc. I
ndustry 4.0 initiatives that connect the produc- tion equipment in the SMT line, such as IPC’s CFX initiative, are critical to the design of
today’s smart factory. So are smart storage towers or smart stencil storage systems. On the other hand, the “intelligent factories” of the future will connect all these smart pockets inside the factory using an artificial intelligence (AI) engine that will run the factory to optimize efficiency.
Material Handling Material transformation is the core of
Industry 4.0. This focuses on how materials — in this case electronic components — are transformed as they are assem- bled onto a PCB. The SMT line is fully automated today, with pick- and-place machines that can shoot components onto the PCB at blister- ing speeds. Once materials are prop- erly loaded into production mach - ines, no humans are required for operation, from the printer at the front of the line to the X-ray machine at the end. The current stage of evolution of
the smart factory deals with the automation of material storage. Although the majority of SMT facto- ries still rely on miles of shelving space to store electronic components, a few have begun to invest in smart storage. In a smart storage system, no
human interaction is needed to insert or retrieve reels from shelves. Instead, a robot picks up the reels placed in an entry port and automat- ically places them on a specially designed shelving system. These smart storage systems are also capa- ble of picking up the right set of reels automatically, based on a build list from the factory’s material require- ments planning (MRP) software. In a typical configuration, the
MRP system sends the build list to the smart storage system. Let’s say 1,000 of product XYZ needs to be assembled. The robot in the smart storage system picks the reels need- ed to assemble 1,000 XYZ boards and presents them at the access port. If product XYZ uses two 100 pF 1206 capacitors per board, the smart stor- age will pick enough reels to fulfill the necessary 2,000 capacitors. These reels can be ordered in
such a way to match the order of the feeders in the pick-and-place mach - ines. Thus, the operator can pick up the reels and place them in the feed- er in the correct order, without the need to further document the loca- tion of each reel. This step requires strong coordination and software integration between the smart stor- age system and the pick-and-place machine. Once the run of 1,000 XYZ prod-
ucts is complete, the cart with the partially used reels inside the feeders is brought back to the inventory room. There, each feeder is disassem- bled and the reels must be counted before they are placed back in the smart storage system. This step is quickly becoming the job of X-ray parts counters, such as those offered by Creative Electron. Of the three states of material
inside a factory — movement, storage and transformation — movement is by far the least-automated. The
See at APEX, Booth 2114 Rendering of an automated warehouse.
movement of parts relies heavily on humans mov- ing the parts to and from machines. It is also one of the most challenging tasks to automate, because the machines in an SMT factory are designed for human interface.
Automated Material Movement It is difficult to create a machine to replace a
human that picks up the reels on the shelf and loads a feeder. As a result, robots are not used, which then reduces the motivation for capital equipment manufacturers to design machines with
Continued on next page
The only constant in manufacturing is change.
Page 73
So why should your dispensing and coating process remain static?
Move your process FORWARD.
Nordson ASYMTEK understands the needs of those in electronics packaging and assembly. We offer affordable, efficient productivity solutions backed by our unequalled application support. Drawing on decades of accumulated experience, we are able to provide our customers with capable yet affordable tools to enhance workflows and improve end products.
QUANTUM High-value automated dispensing system – uncompromising quality, value and productivity for in-line and batch fluid dispensing applications.
Conexis Mid-volume, high-
accuracy modular conformal coating system – provides quality and value for your automated process.
Visit us at
www.nordsonasymtek.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136
