For alittle PCB prototyping business bent serving a number of the best-known and most respected tech brands on the earth , quick tu...
For
alittle PCB prototyping business bent serving a number of the best-known and
most respected tech brands on the earth , quick turnaround is quite a marketing
gimmick - it is a promise. PCB prototype assembly is by no means an easy
activity, and small, time-consuming hang-ups can become lost orders and angry
customers in an industry where 48-hour turnarounds are the norm.
In
order to be ready to reliably produce results on such short time frames, PCB
assembly plants got to optimize nearly every aspect of their workflow for speed
and consistency. At the guts of this need is an inherent conflict between
maximizing the assets and resources you already own or adding additional assets
and resources to your environment.
Essentially,
what fast-turnaround PCB assemblers want to understand is whether or not they
ought to hire additional help and make more use of their machines, or buy
newer, better machines which will allow them to make the foremost of their
current staff.
Imperfectly
Optimized PCB Planning Systems
Before
jumping into the difficulty of whether manpower or machine power really
generates fast turnarounds, we'd like to make certain that the PCB planning
system itself is already performing optimally. As William Ho asserts, component
placement is that the bottleneck of any PCB production line .
Essentially,
that bottleneck is formed from two parts - component sequencing and feeder
arrangements. PCB manufacturers got to choose the optimal sequence of
components then assign them to the acceptable feeders
There
are nearly infinite ways in which PCB component sequencing and feeder
arrangements are often approached. Finding the truly most effective solution is
just not feasible during a business context - not, at least, with current
computational technology, and positively not within a two-day timeframe.
PCB
assemblers on a decent deadline use genetic algorithms to work out near-optimal
planning systems without getting lost on the thanks to the "perfect"
solution. While this is often not a drag which will be solved with today's
technology, it is vital to recollect that no current PCB assembly process is
perfectly efficient. This becomes an increasingly complicating factor for
high-volume PCB prototype companies.
More
Machines Means More found out Time
Knowing
that any given PCB assembly process must be but perfectly efficient, we will
address time constraints on workflow processes.
SMT
machines aren't plug-and-play devices. Even efficient machines require
changeovers of a minimum of an hour - if you run eight to 10 setups every week
, meaning that you're losing a whole day in production time hebdomadally .
Changeover
times can become a huge drag on production, especially when handling tight
turnarounds. Time, once lost, can't be recovered, and each second of your time
saved boosts revenue.
Since
SMT machines can encounter nearly infinite production possibilities on one run,
and are often tasked with making multiple runs per day, any changeover time is
downtime. A UIC shows during a simple set of graphs consistent with SMT machine
revenue generating time, every second counts - an hour of downtime for a line
that generates $10 million yearly costs $5000.
While
there are always ways to enhance the efficiency of a PCB production line ,
there's no thanks to account for $5000 in unnecessary losses. Considering that
some SMT machines can take up to four hours to line up for one run of a
prototype PCB, making the foremost of every workday is far and away the higher
option.
Moreover,
installing additional production lines doesn't affect the productivity of every
individual line. While it's going to appear to enhance PCB assembly turnaround,
adding more lines and workers may cost quite its worth if overall production
volume doesn't also increase. For this reason, keeping workers late or maybe
hiring an additional shift is far and away the higher option.
Night
Shifts Can Generate More Value
Maximizing
the quantity of your time that every machine can run is that the best thanks to
ensure efficiency on short-turnaround PCB assembly projects. Finding workers
willing to place in overtime - or hiring a whole night shift - is one among the
simplest ways to make sure that you simply consistently meet assembly deadlines
and minimize downtime.
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