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Making the Switch from Board Fabricator to EMS Provider
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
By Michael Schwartz, Manncorp Inc.
Decimated by post-9/11 cutbacks, offshore competition, and environmental legislation, one U.S.-based bare-board testing company decided to transition to a contract PCB assembler. Lot size/type versatility, high-reliability, and quick turns were important.
In the early 2000s, eastern Long Island, N.Y., bare-board testing house AA Technology Inc. faced an uncertain future. Their customer base, already decimated by post-9/11 cutbacks, was rapidly eroding further due to newly enacted EPA-backed legislation banning pollutants used in bare-board production. This stringent but necessary legislation – plus the rising shift to offshore sources for the manufacture of bare boards – threatened AA’s corporate survival.
However, instead of abandoning ship, the principals, guided by CEO Henry Tang, attempted to steer the PCB business in a new direction. They resolved to transform AA Tech from a testing facility into a contract PCB assembler. This was not a quick-fix solution for a team accustomed to selling a service, having no experience whatsoever in board assembly.
Entering the EMS Sector
The primary objective for the company was to get an intensive technical education. This was achieved by enrolling in an electronics trade school, attending trade association seminars and expos, searching the Internet, and making visits to non-competing board assembly facilities. The company also needed to source, purchase, and learn to operate all the necessary capital equipment for SMT production.
The next step involved getting another important education on the equipment end – learning about printers, component placement systems, reflow ovens, and the other systems necessary to manufacture electronic assemblies.
Selecting the right machines for their future market was not easy, as AA Tech had no idea of the type and volume of boards it was going to build. They decided that this dictated flexibility as a paramount concern.
Figure 1. The diagram shows how AA Tech has laid out their mix of lines.
To get their new enterprise off to a fast start, it was decided to “first get the business” by conducting an aggressive sales effort, even before their shop was fully operational. This push was lead by Frank Rosselli, VP of sales, who discovered that orders were not difficult to come by, since AA executives have personal ties to Long Island’s close-knit manufacturing community. “We also soon learned that by reverse engineering our customer’s sample boards, skills retained from the company’s former life as PCB testers, we prevented production missteps that could have cost us our new customers. At the same time we gained valuable hands-on experience in the board assembly process,” explains Jim Stapleton, AA’s VP of engineering. “This provided insight into equipment capabilities we would need.”
Initial Capital Investment
With numerous equipment suppliers available to create segments of the line, AA Tech decided on a single-source supplier for a complete turnkey system, consisting of a 5,500 CPH dual-head vision placer, an automatic stencil printer with vision, a lead-free five-zone reflow oven, and a lead-free 400-mm dual-wave five-zone soldering machine. “While capable of turning out only a few hundred populated boards per shift,” Stapleton says, “this fully integrated line made up for what it in lacked in speed with the versatility we needed to process a wide spectrum of both surface mount and thru-hole components. All of these initial-purchase machines still are in use currently, called on when production agendas call for short turnaround lead times, moderate lot sizes, and high reliability.”
Expansion
As the PCB assembler’s sales expanded, they recognized a need to invest in more capital equipment to accelerate production. To resolve this bottleneck, AA Tech acquired a high-speed 30,000 CPH chip shooter, along with a second printer to support it.
Due to space limitations, both lines fed into a single reflow oven. This was the case until early in 2008, when AA expanded to 18,000 square feet in its present location, in an industrial park on the grounds of Islip’s MacArthur Airport, Ronkonkoma, N.Y.
Figure 2. AA Tech’s surface mount assembly area is a portion of the company’s 25,000-square-foot facility, which also includes manual and semi-automated assembly
This move enabled the company to add three more lines, including two more stencil printers; the third line featuring another 5,500 CPH placement system, a version of the original pick-and-place system purchased as part of the turnkey line. The fourth line includes a dual-head placement machine, with 224 feeder capacity. The fifth placement machine bought is fed by the previously acquired chip shooter. This ultra-high-speed line is now using a reflow oven and printer and additional conveyers to support it. AA Tech later invested in a compact lead-free dual-wave system for segregating lead-free thru-hole applications from leaded production. Along with machinery, AA Tech was able to outfit its lines with conveyors from the same supplier, providing transport and inspection area for boards. This helped fully automate the production process.
The company employs 33 people who work in a close-knit, family-like atmosphere. In fact, families do work there: there’s a husband-and-wife team in sales; in the shop, there’s another husband and wife, plus a mother and her daughter as well as another mother and her son.
.Figure 3. This high-speed line boasts a chip shooter and seven-head pick-and-place machine in line with a stencil printer and eight-zone reflow oven, all conveyorized.
“We no longer have to chase after business,” Stapleton asserts. “Companies can find us based on our reputation. They expect quick turns with high quality.” Under the guidance of quality assurance (QA) manager Jim Unser, as of June 2008 AA Tech is ISO 9001/2000 certified through NSF-ISR.
Conclusion
All five lines at AA Tech’s new location not only have increased throughput exponentially, they are configured to allow the contract manufacturer to perform diverse production assignments, whether low-volume/high-density, mid-volume/high-mix, or high-speed/high-volume.
AA Technology now averages 100,000+ assembled boards per month. They are components of many established end products, such as subassemblies for high-voltage power supply, white noise generators, and 7,000-W high-intensity lights used on fire trucks and military vehicles. Its customer base of over 100 OEMs serves the consumer and business-to-business marketplaces, with PCBs used in medical equipment and telecommunications as well as boards for subcontractors of aircraft manufacturers and military products.
Production versatility has also been a key factor in attracting business. With its broad equipment lineup, AA Tech has an enormous range of capability in board assembly, including prototyping, high-volume, and 12-mil pitch surface mount or thru-hole. They also can do manual assembly of parts that are not suitable for automatic placement.
Stapleton acknowledges that “getting into PCB assembly was a wise move, far exceeding our best years in testing.” SMT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSContact the author for a full list of equipment used to make up AA Tech’s lines.
Michael Schwartz, director of marketing, Manncorp Inc., may be contacted at 2845 Terwood Rd., Willow Grove, Pa. 19090; (215) 830-1200; mschwartz@manncorp.com.