INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
Todd O’Neil, business development and sales manager for the Nordson Assure product line, tells ETmore about Nordson, its notable achievements and future plans
N
ordson Corporation is a global designer and manufacturer of precision technologies for critical customer applications in
consumer, medical, electronics and industrial end markets. The company’s products are supported by application expertise and direct global sales and service.
For readers unfamiliar with Nordson Test & Inspection, can you briefly describe it? How does this division fit into the Nordson company? As mentioned Nordson is a global company involved in many different industries. We are leaders in many industries including our Advanced Technology Solutions, which includes subgroups such as Nordson Electronics Solutions, which is what we consider our “Build- in-Quality” segment, and Test & Inspection (T&I), which we consider our “Verify Quality” segment. Within the T&I group we offer Accoustic products, Optical products, Bond testing and Material products, X-ray detectors and sources and, of course, the Assure X-ray component counting systems which we are discussing today.
What is this role of Nordson Assure products under the Test & Inspection umbrella? A high percentage of Test & Inspection customers are building circuit boards and other electronic assemblies. The Nordson products within the Test & Inspection group are used to verify quality as mentioned above. Most are verifying quality on electronic assemblies, which have electronic components. With such shortages of electronic components, it is critical to have complete control of your component inventory during the process of building these products. The Assure counts components very quickly and accurately with much less handling, compared to the old way of manually counting or not counting at all. It will update ERP, storage towers and/or racks, and will give you peace of mind by having complete control of your inventory. The idea of counting components and controlling your inventory is more about keeping SMT lines running.
How has Nordson Assure continued to stay successful and differentiate itself from its competition, especially in today’s fast-paced industry? The first thing people should know is we were the first to produce this type of equipment for this application. We were originally optical control, and we began developing this machine in 2011 in Germany. We were acquired by Nordson in 2019 because we fit perfectly into their product lineup but, more importantly, our focus on quality and support fit theirs. I believe we differentiate from others for several reasons but one of
our big advantages is the fact that we built this product within our own EMS factory, for our own needs, where we had four SMT lines. There are many reasons why this is important:
1.We struggled with the same pain points all other EMS companies struggle with, i.e., line stoppage because there were fewer components on a reel than expected. As everyone knows, line stoppage is very expensive, frustrating, and often unnecessary. In fact, that is how this idea came about at optical control years ago. An engineer was being questioned about a line down and he said; “Well, if we had a better way to count components, maybe this wouldn’t continue happening.” That was the beginning of optical control, and in reality, the beginning of counting components with x-ray.
2.We built this machine from the ground up as a component counter and nothing else. We did not turn an existing machine into a counter. We made a deliberate design from the beginning and the only focus was “counting components”.
3.We had, and still have, a dedicated team that focuses 100% on component counting. We don’t try to be an all-in-one solution as we feel that distracts from what we are good at. We work with other companies that do what they do best, while we continue to do what we do best. A good example is component storage which I’m sure will be a part of this conversation. 4. Most likely, our biggest advantage is we were both a CM and an
32 NOVEMBER 2021 | ELECTRONICS TODAY
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