-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueBox Build
One trend is to add box build and final assembly to your product offering. In this issue, we explore the opportunities and risks of adding system assembly to your service portfolio.
IPC APEX EXPO 2024 Pre-show
This month’s issue devotes its pages to a comprehensive preview of the IPC APEX EXPO 2024 event. Whether your role is technical or business, if you're new-to-the-industry or seasoned veteran, you'll find value throughout this program.
Boost Your Sales
Every part of your business can be evaluated as a process, including your sales funnel. Optimizing your selling process requires a coordinated effort between marketing and sales. In this issue, industry experts in marketing and sales offer their best advice on how to boost your sales efforts.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
SMTA International, Assembly Technology Expo a Success
October 15, 2003 |Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Rosemont, Ill. — The 24th annual Assembly Technology Expo, billed as the nation's largest "all assembly" trade event, took place here at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center from September 23 through 25, attracting 11,397 industry professionals.
Nearly 600 companies exhibited their latest assembly solutions, from advanced robotic systems to hand tools, for use in a wide range of manufacturing industries, including automotive, electronics, industrial equipment, medical and computers.
Highlights of the event included three standing-room-only keynote presentations. The show opened Tuesday with Gerald Palmer, vice president of Caterpillar Inc.'s Wheel Loaders & Excavators Division, presenting "Six Sigma is About Success." Palmer shared with the ATExpo audience the successes that Caterpillar has experienced with their implementation of Design for Six Sigma.
Day two began with a high-energy multimedia presentation, "Flawless Execution," by two engaging F-15 fighter pilots from Afterburner Seminars. The presentation addressed how fighter pilots operate in a combat environment using the Flawless Execution model and how to apply those tactics to daily challenges. The second keynote on Wednesday, "Production Engineering for TPS," presented by Yasuo Tanigawa, vice president — production engineering for Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America, shared insights into the widely acclaimed Toyota production system.
Dedicated technology pavilions made it easy for attendees to locate the specific products and suppliers they wanted to see, and included the Electronics Assembly Pavilion, which showcased more than 200 top suppliers offering state-of-the-art solutions for every phase of the electronics manufacturing process. The pavilion also featured the EASi Line, a live electronics assembly line that manufactured a working memory game.
The ATExpo Conference offered more than 30 in-depth sessions organized into five tracks: Manufacturing Management, Automated Assembly, Lean Manufacturing, Materials Joining and Wire Processing. Sessions focused on a variety of high-interest topics, including work cell design, implementing lean production, fuel cell assembly, machine vision assembly, and many more.
Attendees from the electronics manufacturing industry updated their technical skills with more than 40 sessions and special events at the co-located SMTA International conference. This year's conference, held September 21 through 25, attracted its audience by fulfilling the association's mission of "building skills, sharing practical experience, and developing solutions in electronic assembly technologies and related business operations."
In addition to the technical sessions and tutorials, the special events during SMTA International were successful. The Opening Ceremony, during which the Status of the Technology was presented, and the Emerging Technologies Summit were both well attended and gave everyone present a better idea of the future direction of the electronics manufacturing industry. Also popular were the returning symposiums on lead-free and contract manufacturing.
At the annual meeting, the recipients of the SMTA awards and Hutchins Grant were recognized. The Keynote Address, "Prospering in a Reshaped Electronics Industry," was given by Brian E. Swiggett, co-founder and managing partner of Prismark Partners. When asked, attendees were overly satisfied with the conference and exhibit, and notably optimistic about the developing economic recovery.
For more information on SMTA International, including a comprehensive photo scrapbook, visit www.smta.org/smtai.