Innovative Behaviour

I was reading an article on Evertiq (www.evertiq.com) a while ago and it was commenting that there was an incredible lack of innovation in the USA and that was the reason that the US electronics industry in particular was not doing well in recent times. After years of selling Automated First Article Inspection Systems (FAI) I tend to agree that the article was fairly accurate in its assessment. The more I speak to people the less I think they are aware of what goes on in their own factories.

In particular a lot of companies believe that FAI is something that is simply done but does not hold a high importance to the outcome of their SMT operation. I guess I hold a vested interest in this opinion but I also have run a CEM in Australia for the past 25 years so I have knowledge pertaining to this subject from a users aspect as well. We originally designed the Automated FAI for our own use in our facility. We recognised that there were 2 distinct problems due to FAI that we needed to tackle. One was a QA issue in that we had at random times loaded incorrect parts on PCB's. The 2nd issue was the time it took to perform the manual FAI and the disruption to the production flow being the SMT loaders were idle during this process.

The QA issue was attempted to be tackled by increasing inspection of the manual process of conversion of data by having someone checking the data. This had limited effect and reduced the problems but they still occurred at random times due to human error. The other QA issue was attempted to be resolved by again, more inspection. A 2nd person double checked the feeder setup. This seemed to work but after time the problem was that the personnel in the SMT area were double checking their friends work and could not be 100% effective. We thought of barcoding but came to the conclusion that this would only push the problem upstream to the people placing the barcodes on the reels, they can still make the same mistake as anyone. Everyone knows that you cannot inspect quality into a product, they must be designed in.

The 2nd issue of time was a substantial one which seemed more difficult. Every time the lines were changed over there was several hours during which the manual FAI was done that the lines were idle. Because we had 4 SMT lines being changed a minimum of 2-3 times a week it seemed as if half of our lines were down waiting for FAI permanently. Like all CEM's we are under ever increasing pressure to keep costs down and machines laying idle did not fit this mode. 

We designed our first Automated FAI machine to fulfil this purpose for our own use and then later on started to sell the system worldwide. In my discussions with other CEM's around the world the most accepting and innovative companies seem to be from Eastern Europe and China in particular. This fact actually bucks the so-called perception that in China they simply copy things and do not innovate their processes. Companies in China have a real handle on the problem and are actively seeking solutions to those problems. In the USA there is a distinct attitude that if they did not think of it then it is not useful or it is not what they want. A lot of companies do not believe there is a problem, it is either being hidden, or not highlighted by staff. There are even some who think it is not even necessary to check the the first PCB assembled  and it is a waste of time!

One leading CEM evaluated our system a long time ago and  wrote a glowing report that the system would save $70KUSD per week in the one factory premises only, which put the ROI on the system at 2.1 days, and then promptly sent the demo unit back to us. It took an unbelievable 3 months before they purchased it and the reason was that there was no other system of its kind at that time to compare it to and their rules were that there must be minimum 2-3 quotes to purchase. During those 3 months we sold 5 units to their other facilities(same company) in Hungary, Israel and China before they authorised the purchase for themselves. Based on the report they distributed internally their overseas counterparts felt they could not wait for the red tape to resolve and authorised and purchased the systems locally.

Innovative behaviour is what made the United States unique and strong, if innovation is lost then I cannot imagine what may happen to the manufacturing base, or for that matter, the country. As the USA comes out of the GFC it is time to re-evaluate innovative behaviour in every aspect of their business. Maybe it is time to reinvent themselves as their historical counterparts did, this will be the only way to survive. Complaining that the work is disappearing to China or wherever will not bring it back, innovation is the key. Customers recognise value added in their suppliers, they just have to be shown that it exists.

The problem in a lot of cases is that the innovation is just not there. 

Greg Ross

Cluso Vision Systems

Management - Introducing Automated First Article Inspection Series

Management have a difficult time in determining which equipment to invest in and which ones to stay away from. Each department usually comes with a seemingly sob story about why you should authorise some money to make his job easier and supposedly save the company enough money to make it worth it. Management have to weigh up the endless options from staff suggesting equipment and processes with technical reasons that sometimes are self motivated to the employees own agenda. These can sometimes be as simple as building an inspection dynasty for themselves and as devious as hiding some inability to perform a job and the equipment will hide this.

An Automated First Article Inspection System is a very easy system to justify financially except it is a difficult one to suggest because the department that will use it, and is providing the technical reason for the purchase, has to come clean that basically they cannot do their job properly without it. This will expose the fact that there is NO traceable system in place that 100% covers this function. They will have to admit that they do not perform a 100% FAI and/or are not exposing the time it takes to do it. They are afraid the obvious question will arise... "What the hell do I pay you for if this is the first I hear of this hole in our SMT Inspection area".

Somehow this impasse has to be broken if the FAI process can be fixed. The seemingly simple process of FAI is that prior to switching the machines to full speed building product in SMT after a changeover is that someone 100% checks the first PCB coming off the line to ensure it is built to the customers specification. When the SMT builds it wrong the management step to in ask the question, what went wrong. Usually there are a variety of excuses like, Someone did not check the feeders properly and management decide that a 2nd person should check and consider the problem solved and everyone pats themselves on the back, job well done. The other is to train the operators on inspecting the feeder setup, or simply fire someone, or both.

The problem will not go away, the fact is that in any manual process there will be human error. In the FAI process there are 2 places for error, in the conversion of the customer CAD/BOM data to Pick and Place file and placing the feeders in the right places. When checking these places at FAI the operator is left to check this without any help and the result of his inspection will load 100's of thousands of parts onto PCB's, potentially wrong. And he is being pressured to perform this task in a ever reducing length of time. In some factories I have looked at they are given 10 minutes to perform FAI for a PCB that contains 700 parts. This means the person performing this FAI must locate the part on the PCB and check if it is the right part in under 3/4 of a second average per part. That is the simple math. Since this is not possible they must NOT be inspecting the PCB 100%. Which parts are not being checked, does it matter, any part missed at FAI means that every PCB assembled will be wrong. Does this not worry you, it would scare the hell out of me.

At Cluso we have our own CEM facility here because we started as a CEM and designed the Cluso system for ourselves many years ago. We know the problems and we have solved them with the Cluso system. In the 7 years we have been using the Cluso system we have not loaded a single part in the wrong location... 

Can you say that??

The ROI on the system has been calculated in weeks not months. One of the largest CEM's calculated that the system would save them $70KUSD per week at the one facility when measured against 100% manual FAI methods. Needless to say we have sold many around the world to this company. Maybe you can wait until the next time you have to explain to your customer that you loaded 5000 PCB's with the wrong component and it was in a location that the test did not pick up...

Good Luck.

Greg Ross

Cluso Vision Systems

Surface Mount Department - Introducing Automated First Article Inspection Series

In the SMT department they are really at the coalface of the issue in that they are under crushing pressure to keep the machines running at maximum speed with no downtime. Production Management are increasingly pressuring them to provide more output and coming down heavier when things go wrong. The SMT department is left with being responsible for the quality of its own output like all workcells in manufacturing but the tools to ensure this are not keeping up with the technology of P&P machines. These machines are getting faster and more expensive than ever and downtime is not acceptable in financial terms. Anything that can be done to get them up and running faster is being experimented with. The problem is until automated FAI came around there was nothing to help except throwing manpower at the FAI or reducing the level of FAI. These methods are either costly, risky or both.

One of the key processes in SMT that has downtime is at changeover time when a new product or batch is put onto the SMT lines. The time it takes to get the Pick and Place machines back up to speed is being monitored and criticised the most. The main problem here is that SMT has not been provided with any automated processes to allow them to reduce these times, in some cases it is only the loud voice of management driving them to reduce these times, OR ELSE. Left with the ominous choice of, either reduce the times or someone else will, then the only option is to cut corners and do not tell anyone thereby running the risk of the wrath of management.

Using an Automated First Article Inspection System these changeover times CAN be reduced without cutting corners, using these systems properly actually increases inspection coverage, simplifies the process and adds a level of traceability unheard until now. As well the times are brought down to a manageable level. For manufacturers dealing with the assembly of highly traceable products like medical or military products these system can easily provide them with the results required to satisfy the scrutiny of any ISO13485 system requirements.

With an automated FAI on board in SMT the personnel can actually concentrate the business of producing PCB's and not performing FAI's under extreme time pressure wondering when the wrath of management is going to crush their future employment due to the length of time the FAI has taken or worse still because a mistake was made during their normal reduced manual inspection and 10,000 PCB's are loaded with an incorrect part and the customer is screaming for heads to roll.

Greg Ross

Cluso Vision Systems