WORKS Logistics

“That SMT manufacturers want to avoid machine downtimes at all cost makes a lot of sense,” says Alexander Nitzsche, Senior Product Manager Automation Solutions at market leader ASMPT. “Unfortunately, this often leads to far more material than necessary being stored next to the line ‘as a precaution’ so that valuable space on the shop floor gets blocked and material is no longer available to other lines. It is also not uncommon for a reel of material that has just been taken off the machine and returned to storage to be transported back to the setup preparation area after only a few minutes because it is needed again. With WORKS Logistics, things can be done much more easily and efficiently through automatic material requests and selective interim storage.”

Time slice-based material flow

WORKS Logistics continuously calculates the material demand based on freely definable time slices and interacts with Factory Material Manager software to ensure that the right material is available in the right quantity at the right time in the right place. Based on the planned demand and actual material consumption as well as the material stock on site, the material flow application calculates and updates the demand along the line continuously and dynamically. The resulting data forms the basis for the automatic control and optimization of material flows, demand messages to central and intermediate storage locations, and time-driven transport jobs.

Material gets re-used across upcoming orders

WORKS Logistics also organizes and optimizes the interim storage of material in the setup preparation area, thus avoiding unnecessary material travel between the warehouse and the shop floor. When reels are removed from the machine after a production run has been completed, the application checks automatically whether the material will be needed again for additional orders in the coming days. If this is the case, it instructs the staff to move the reel in question to the Active Feeder Rack in the setup preparation area. If additional material is needed, WORKS Logistics automatically sends a request to the warehouse via the Factory Material Manager.

Supply security and resource relief

“WORKS Logistics marks another important step on the road to the intelligent and integrative use of data for process optimization,” explains Nitzsche. “As an innovation and market leader in hardware and software for electronics manufacturing, we were able to pour our entire process know-how and many years of experience into the development of WORKS Logistics. Our customers get a practice-oriented application for their intelligent factory that gives them supply security and provides noticeable relief for their operators as well as for their transport and storage infrastructure.”