Prototypes in record time

EMS providers constantly face up to the high demands of their customers. Above all, high flexibility in production, cost-optimised manufacturing and high quality are among the fundamental requirements. At the same time, the customer's product should be produced as quickly as possible, starting from a batch size of 1. Long waiting times for a prototype to be completed lengthen the time to market of a new product.

That is why R&D Elektronik from Mönchengladbach offers its customers a very special, fast 48-hour service. To complete production within 2 days, the process in the run-up to production also came into focus. For prototypes, preparing the data and matching it against the company's own component library carry far more weight per board than they do for large series.

EMS provider R&D Elektronik

R&D Elektronik has more than 40 years of experience in electronics manufacturing and device assembly. Prototypes and medium and large series are produced, in full or in part, for a variety of sectors. As recently as 2017, the company significantly expanded its production space and machinery (Figure 2). Naturally, R&D Elektronik is ISO 9001 certified and has also held UL certification for years.

Short lines of communication and close personal support characterise its customer-oriented business relationships. R&D focuses on machine-based production methods as early as the prototype phase, thus producing prototypes in series quality.

Meeting the 48-hour deadline, however, places additional high demands on the organisation of production. Besides fast production, R&D Elektronik also identified optimisation potential in work preparation. To produce the prototypes within 2 days, it must be clear as quickly as possible whether the required components are in stock in sufficient quantities.

Until then, this process step had taken too much time, so R&D Elektronik set out to find a suitable system. They found it at Lebert Software Engineering in Hanau.

Importing customer data

Because there is no standard format for data exchange, processing customer data by conventional means takes a great deal of time. This is where the EFA SmartSuite software comes in (Figure 4), developed specifically for the requirements of EMS providers. Customer BoMs can be imported into the software “as they are”. Extensive special functions are designed specifically for the peculiarities of summary BoMs. With one click, grouped notations can be split and ranges (such as C1 to C5) converted into lists. Sub-ranges can also be combined across rows or columns. The aim is to prepare the data as quickly as possible so that it can be used for quotations and in production without further editing.

Finding the right components

In the second step, EFA SmartSuite carries out the necessary matching against the component library on the basis of the customer data. To do this, EFA SmartSuite interprets the values in the customer BoM according to the relevant component category and suggests possible matches from the material database. The order of the individual details within the component description plays no role, nor do the notation or units of the respective values. Components that are not described by values automatically go through the fuzzy search. EFA SmartSuite also displays matches that differ slightly from the original designation in the customer data. Colour coding marks a match as good (green) or less good (down to red).

Bachelor's thesis confirms time savings

For R&D Elektronik, the two steps “importing the customer data” and “matching against the company's own component library” are of central importance.

“These process steps simply took too much time,” explains Plant Manager Theo Schelasni.

To improve its own process steps, the existing procedures were examined thoroughly in a bachelor's thesis. This clearly identified which steps take the most time. The key points were editing the BoMs, matching them against the company's own component library and comparing BoMs. If the customer sends a corrected list, it can take a long time to find the differences from the previous list. With EFA SmartSuite, changes are highlighted in colour immediately. The changed values can also be displayed one below the other in the list comparison. This makes it quick to check which details have changed and how (Figure 3).

With EFA SmartSuite, quotations can now be prepared in record time.

“In no time at all, it is clear which components are already in stock,” says Plant Manager Theo Schelasni.

Components that are not in stock can be requested from distributors by email or searched for online.

An inspection solution for prototypes

R&D Elektronik invested in the EFA SmartSuite system back in 2016. At that time, the focus was on the EFA Inspection application, which is designed for inspecting first articles, small batches and prototypes. For a first article inspection, for example, all components with the same part number can be displayed and assessed together. The image sections of the individual components are rotated back to zero degrees according to the rotation angle from the placement data. The inspector then only has to check that all the components displayed have the same orientation (Figure 1). The inspection is also enriched with data and information. With this augmented reality, the operator always has all the information required in view and can make a well-founded inspection decision.

A high-resolution image of the PCB is created as the basis for the inspection. For this, R&D Elektronik has an EFA Picture Touch HR unit. The unit offers extensive setting options. A separate imaging profile can be set up for each board, guaranteeing repeatable image quality.

At R&D Elektronik, the inspection system is used both for first article inspection and for small batch inspection in THT. For small batches, the alternating image display with a golden board is used to detect errors quickly and reliably as movement in the image.

Using EFA Inspection has led to significant time savings in manual optical inspection at R&D Elektronik. At the same time, this previously purely manual process step has become repeatable and traceable, thus contributing to improved production quality.

Smart instead of manual

By using EFA SmartSuite, R&D Elektronik has achieved significant time savings for its 48-hour prototype service. The quotation process in general has also improved. As the BoMs can now be exported in a standardised form, they can be used directly in production without further editing. This, too, saves valuable time.

The EMS software EFA SmartSuite supports many of an EMS provider's process steps, from quotation through work preparation to production (Figure 5). It manages the customer data and enables fast, standardised work with the inventive variety of customer formats. Interfaces to ERP and MES systems ensure the necessary data flow. Through close cooperation with users, EFA SmartSuite is continuously being extended with functions that efficiently support day-to-day work with customer data. In particular, this repeatedly makes it easier to carry out processes that combine human know-how with the automation of the computer – saving people a significant amount of time. Very much in the spirit of Industry 4.0! EFA SmartSuite thus enables close cooperation between people and machines for flexible production, even from a batch size of 1.