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Reducing Total Manufacturing Cost with Automation
October 8, 2014 |Estimated reading time: 1 minute
For years, the production line back ends at most EMS companies have been primarily manual. While board assembly technology has undergone many improvements in terms of equipment automation, from faster pick-and-place machines and smarter reflow ovens to 3D inspection and flying probers, the back-end operations for final assembly and testing have remained largely non-automated.
Many reasons have been proposed to explain this reticence, including the high up-front cost of automation, a lack of standards, the wide variety of components and processes required, and decreasing product life cycles. There are, however, numerous reasons for EMS providers to look more closely at automating their back-end production lines--if not completely, at least partially. Not only are labor costs rising worldwide but quality requirements are getting more stringent as well. OEM customers continue to demand single-digit DPPM (defective parts per million) and continuous cost reduction programs.
Adding Value with Automation
In the end, the value of automation boils down to decreasing costs and increasing revenue. Let us look a little closer at both, starting with costs. If implemented judiciously, automation will increase throughput, improve quality, increase repeatability, and reduce labor-related costs.
The traditional reason that manufacturing engineers have long offered when attempting to justify automation has been the reduction in the number of manual operators. But this is no longer sufficient. Not only is it unfair to the project proponent, since the project might actually be more attractive than he is able to present it, but it is also unfair to the company, since it cannot reap the benefits of an automation project that is wrongly pushed aside.Read the full article here.Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the September 2014 issue of SMT Magazine.