As performance, quality and cost pressures are rising steadily in electronics manufacturing along with the general complexity of operations, the shortage of skilled labor is putting companies under even more pressure. To deploy people as effectively as possible, provide them with the best possible support and make them happy employees, you need intelligent, flexible and process-enhancing software solutions. ASMPT shows how this can be accomplished with its comprehensive portfolio of software that paves the way to the intelligent factory and makes factories more efficient, productive, and resilient.
In times of skilled labor shortages and steadily rising customer requirements, there is no way around the digital transformation for electronics manufacturers if they want to be competitive and resilient. Nevertheless, staff assignments, material flows, maintenance and repairs, reporting and a whole lot more are still being planned and controlled manually in many factories – the digital transformation still ends at the machines. Rigid employee assignments to specific machines or lines continue to prevail, and most manuals, checklists, maintenance plans and service reports are still on paper. As a result, line staff are not deployed according to their respective qualifications or task priorities, and any service technician called for help spends considerably more time searching for information than actually fixing the problem.
The most important task for the operations staff is to keep the line running in order to ensure its optimal Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). All processes must be properly coordinated and run without interruptions. Materials must be delivered and refilled on time, problems quickly resolved, and maintenance work performed without disturbing the processes. All the line operations applications of the WORKS Software Suite help managers and operators on the shop floor to control, optimize and automate the eight workflows Planning, Programming, Integration, Optimization, Monitoring, Operations, Preparations, and Logistics. WORKS orchestrates all the necessary factors such as people, equipment, materials and processes to ensure their seamless interaction.
WORKS provides information in the right place at the right time and deploys employees across all lines based on their individual qualifications. Instead of being rigidly assigned to specific lines, specialists are organized in operator pools and deployed via smart devices where they are needed in accordance with their qualifications and the respective task priorities. The system collects, analyzes and bundles the necessary information directly from the production machines and the monitoring software. In the case of predictable tasks such as material replenishments, consumption is automatically anticipated, and the software organizes their deployment based on the shortest possible travel distances. Another feature that saves many miles of physical travel is the Remote Cockpit, a central console solution that makes it possible to change many machine settings from a single location. If a quality assurance system reports a potentially defective board, it can even be visually inspected via remote access with this convenient cockpit solution.
Material logistics managers must ensure that materials are always on hand in the right place, in the right quantity, and at the right time. WORKS supports them with an innovative solution that divides the flow of materials into freely definable time slices. Based on the planned and actual material consumption as well as the material stock on site, the software continuously and dynamically calculates and updates the demand on the line. Based on this information, it automatically issues material requests to the central and local storage sites along with time-based transportation orders. This eliminates the need for manual reorders with all their potential errors, prevents machine downtime, and eliminates the need for emergency stocks or last-second operator deployments on the line.
Since the solder paste printing process is essential for an error-free production flow, the quality assurance effort is very high for operators. WORKS offers a solution for this that is unique in the industry. With its expert software that uses ‘big data’ and artificial intelligence, SPI systems – from ASMPT as well as compatible third-party systems – can now be expanded into the world’s first self-learning inline expert systems for electronics production. The real-time software analyzes all current and historical inspection data and learns from each individual print. Based on this information, the entire paste printing process can optionally be controlled and optimized fully automatically. The software even takes data from third-party systems such as end-of-line AOI systems into account. It processes much more data in much less time than a human operator ever could, and it does this while overlooking or forgetting nothing. In this way, it makes the employees’ quality assurance duties much easier and improves the line’s overall productivity.
For production and factory managers, information is the key to success – information that WORKS automates, prioritizes, and presents in an easy-to-understand manner. It determines the line status and all key production performance indicators in real time and displays them as needed – in absolute numbers, as graphics, or as target vs actual comparisons with definable target values. It allows managers to see at a single glance what works correctly on the factory floor and what doesn’t. WORKS also provides technicians and process engineers with important detailed information for their analyses and informs production employees about order progress, target achievement and potential improvements by means of overhead monitors.
Diligent maintenance and fast troubleshooting are important prerequisites for a smooth production flow. To perform their job properly, resolve faults quickly and carry out maintenance tasks smoothly, service and maintenance technicians need information above all else – quickly, easily, digitally on their mobile device, and even if what they need comes from different sources spread over many systems.
For this purpose, ASMPT offers intelligent IoT applications and flexibly scalable license models to increase the performance of the entire SMT factory across equipment suppliers and divisions – for example as a central and manufacturer-independent solution for predictive maintenance of all machines, even outside of the SMT production, or as an AI- and Natural Language Processing (NLP)-supported virtual assistant on a mobile device.
Keeping track of the entire production inventory, reconciling necessary maintenance operations with the production planning department and maintaining sufficient capacities without building up a service backlog are demanding tasks for the maintenance manager.
The solution is called Factory Equipment Center, a scalable IoT-based application for enterprise-wide asset and maintenance management with a central maintenance calendar. Planning, controlling, support, execution and documentation of maintenance and service operations are carried out centrally for all production equipment, including machines from other manufacturers and non-SMT production equipment.
The system keeps an eye on production scheduling and coordination at all times, making it possible to assign tasks automatically and error-free. Factory Equipment Center also provides operators with maintenance instructions and checklists as well as other information at the push of a button. It tracks and monitors sensor data and even automates time-consuming manual reporting.
With AI-supported Virtual Assist, service technicians get an all-in-one manual they can carry in their pocket as the perfect assistant for their everyday work that provides upon request all the technical information they need for any machine. No matter from which source or for which machine – with natural language processing (NLP) and AI, they can query the system in normal spoken language; the program automatically adapts its search algorithms to the target medium. Even queries from English-language sources entered in German produce results quickly and directly. And thanks to machine learning, the system adds knowledge with each query and becomes better all the time. Since the SaaS solution is not limited to ASMPT equipment, any number of assets from different vendors can be added to Virtual Assist. Knowledge thus remains in the company even when employees leave. Virtual Assist also makes onboarding new people a lot easier.
Today, software is as important in ASMPT’s product portfolio as the industry’s leading equipment for printing, inspection and assembly on the SMT line – from the machine to the enterprise level. Increasingly complex tasks, new technologies and a whole lot more require the use of process-automating and optimizing software even for best-in-class equipment. It allows companies to benefit from highly efficient personnel deployment, more productivity and more quality while employees enjoy perfect support that makes their everyday work easier, more efficient and more stress-free. And with each process, the software accumulates more knowledge that stays in-house thanks to big data and AI, making the business more competitive and resilient.
As with ASMPT’s hardware solutions, the modular open automation concept forms the central component of the company’s software strategy. It breaks with dependencies on proprietary systems as well as with rigid processes and restrictions. Instead, electronics manufacturers can take their individual modular path to the Intelligent Factory in accordance with their own needs while keeping an eye on the best ROI at all times.
