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Links
www.smartgroup.org
UK electronics
industry’s foremost trade support body
www.itmconsulting.org
Independent
consultancy group operating in the USA
www.systegration.ltd.uk
Supplier of Non-Destructive Test and
Evaluation equipment in UK & Ireland
www.bobwillis.co.uk
Independent process consultant
www.instct.org
Institute of
Circuit Technology, the foremost support group for UK’s PCB industry
www.fasthosts.co.uk
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Automated Sensor Manufacture
Key Benefits
- Shorten supply chain
- Just in time
- Maximum use of floor area
One of the common reasons for companies to
shift assembly operations off-shore is the belief that low labour costs mean
cheaper products.
This is not always so.
The company that is the subject of this case study is based in the UK,
has its largest customer in Germany but makes its products in Asia.
The products are tiny electronic sensors and timers and they are clearly
price-sensitive.
The effort needed to ensure that processes
and production control are kept to stringent standards has more than offset the
savings of off-shore manufacture. Also the logistics of moving products around
the world has significant time and cost implications.
This study looked into the possibility of
automating the production in Europe, probably but not definitely in the UK, and
offering some advantages to the main customers such as Just-In-Time delivery,
rapid design change response and a cost-effective product.
The products are easy to automate and can
be split simply into the electronic and mechanical assembly and test functions.
The diagram shows the smallest system feasible to build up to 8.5million
products per year.
The electronics assembly uses printed
conductive adhesive and a conformal coat for protection. It just so happens that
the curing cycles for these two materials are almost identical and this led to
the selection of a dual lane system through the curing oven so that the first
pass cured the adhesive and sent the glued assembly to the conformal coater
which then directed the products back under the oven to be brought up to the
second lane for conformal coating curing. This
saves space and oven investment.
The mechanical assembly includes
ultrasonically welding plastic casings together once the electronics, battery,
LCD, zebra strip and spacer have been inserted. A robot probe is used to test
the on/off functions and an optical system to test the LCD function all within
the 3.5second overall tact time.
The size of room available for this
operation is only 16 x 17m but the equipment fills about 60% of it.
It might be possible to include the moulding of the plastic casings into
the room but this has been put back because of fears of lack of control of
temperature. Therefore, the mouldings are moulded outside the room and are
shipped in.
This
is such a small unit that it becomes feasible to set up one or more of these
units directly alongside their customers thereby making Just-In-Time supply a
reality.
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P G ENGINEERING
(Sussex) Ltd