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Improving Quality and Productivity: Insights Into Two Companies
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Exact traceability is emerging as a mainstream demand for quality in volume manufacturing, and is expected to be a key element in manufacturing execution systems (MES) investment in the future. With increasing pressure from electronics companies further up in the supply chain, manufacturers will risk losing business if they do not comply.
By Henning Maerkedahl
Danish electronics firm Bang & Olufsen and German automotive systems company Continental Temic, two global organizations, have deployed specialized software* in their manufacturing environments to achieve full traceability of the components used in their end products. By implementing tracing technology, these companies have seen an increase in end product quality, production uptime and profits, as well as reduction in machine setup time and optimized stock audit and traceability processes. (Figure 1)
Figure 1. Factory-wide manufacturing execution system (MES).
The tracing software features a range of real-time assembly line machine interfaces. These interfaces meet traceability requirements of demanding segments of the electronics market. However, they also are broadening their usability into additional high-volume segments.
The software traces component usage to its actual placement position so only defective products need to be recalled. Production processes ranging from incoming material registration to production completion are monitored and controlled, including storage, verification and dry component management.
Continental Temic (part of Continental Automotive Systems, a division of Conti-nental AG) has used quality management software* in its Nürnberg, Germany factory since 1999 for manufacturing automotive power train, safety and body electronics. The software is used with six Fuji surface mount production lines that all together place about 4 million components a day.
Continental Temic invested in the software to minimize recalls, prevent false placement with the wrong devices, and provide detailed information about production performance.
According to Roland Wurm, manager of the SMT department at Continental Temic, the main objective was to solve traceability issues. Continental Temic also was interested in production monitoring, material control and part verification.
The software can be used for both traceability and controlling the quality performance of component suppliers. It traces data relating to each single component with a reference designator, ensuring minimum recall.
Continental Temic uses the advanced tracing system, which provides tracing for products made within a user-defined time period or with a common lot number. The system can store data relating to each printed circuit board (PCB) panel, such as the feeders and component reels used and associated lot numbers, along with the operator responsible for their use in production. It also can trace PCB panels and associated boards/blocks on which a component has been used via PCB barcode, which is stored in the software's database. (Figure 2)
Figure 2. Traceability data is captured in one centralized database, enabling exact traceability down to the component level.
A global performance monitor provides a performance overview of all SMD machines and production using a Windows-based graphical user interface (GUI). It identifies feeders that generate the most errors, as well as the actual error types. A real-time feeder check ensures the correct components are loaded and used on the machine by verifying the correct component at each pickup. Feeder maintenance provides an automatic operator alert on maintenance schedules, and offers user-defined ones. Low-level warning alerts the operator before a reel becomes empty, ensuring that components and feeders are prepared before the machine stops. The dry component module ensures correct dry component handling and lets the operator know before open time expires. The kitting module prepares the next production orders and simplifies feeder handling. (Figure 3)
Figure 3. Global performance monitor, visualizing real-time production performance across multi-vendor assembly lines.
Continental Temic now can see how many components per hour/day/month it has placed, as well as the online utilization of each line. Continental Temic also obtains information about line downtimes, and which product is on the line currently or which was previously, as well as cycle times of each production lot during the last year.
As this is software to prevent something — false placement — calculating an exact return on investment (ROI) can be difficult. Continental Temic says the software has improved the utilization of its SMD lines.
Known for its high-end, design-oriented and technologically innovative home entertainment and communication systems, Danish firm Bang & Olufsen has used this tracing software* since 1997. It currently uses it on nine Fuji surface mount production lines at its Skive site, where it manufactures TV, audio, telephone and medical equipment.
Bang & Olufsen uses the same modules as Continental Temic but without kitting optimization and with the addition of automatic program selection — a module that helps reduce errors caused by manual program selection. By reading barcodes on the PCBs, the automatic program selection module can automatically handle program changes without emptying the SMD line. If PCBs from different orders have been mixed, the system also will detect and handle this.
Bang & Olufsen wanted to ensure that the correct production line setups and programs were always used. The company encountered difficulties with serial defects when machine operators put a wrong component on the pick-and-place machine, says Erik Juhl, production engineer in charge of manufacturing operations at the site. Today the pick-and-place machine will stop if a wrong setup is on the machine. (Figure 4)
Figure 4. Automatic detection of wrong component reel on wrong feeder — initializing machine stop.
If Bang & Olufsen finds a problem with a component after mounting on a PCB, it must be able to find other PCBs where the same type of component has been used.
Conclusion
Using tracing software provides a standard, enterprise-wide solution that can be applied to assembly lines from multiple machine vendors. It allows real-time production monitoring, machine control, stock management and exact data traceability, based on a variety of machine-specific and data-rich interfaces developed specifically for the electronics manufacturing market.
*Valor TraceXpert.
Henning Maerkedahl, president of Valor Denmark, may be contacted at Valor Denmark A/S, Margrethepladsen 1-3, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark, 45 8730 3031; E-mail: hm@dk.valor.com.