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: Lean manufacturing & Six Sigma
Lean manufacturing considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. "Lean" is centered around creating more value with less work.
Six Sigma, using a set of quality management methods, seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing causes of defects and variability in manufacturing. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets--cost reduction or profit increase.
Kaizen, Japanese for "improvement", focuses on continuous improvement in manufacturing activities.
Statistical Process Control (SPC) is an effective method of monitoring a process through the use of control charts.
Learn about these and other business and process improvement tools and philosophies here.
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Articles & Papers
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EMS
Monday, June 8, 2009— Lean Sigma, an approach that has been in practice for several years,
mixes the lean manufacturing concept and problem solving approach with
Six Sigma for a more efficient manufacturing process.
Tools & Methods for Lean Production Management in EA
Monday, June 16, 2008— Lean manufacturing is far from a new concept, and many within the electronics assembly (EA) industry are already familiar with the principles and concepts behind it.
SPC and usage difficulties in SMT
Tuesday, November 18, 2008— The idea of monitoring manufacturing processes using statistical methods goes back to the 1920s when Walter A. Shewhart, an American physicist, engineer and statistician, was engaged by the Western Electric Company in Chicago to find a way to produce their products with a certain quality level.
Placement optimisation in a lean manufacturing environment
Wednesday, February 6, 2008— Tier 2 and Tier 3 EMS companies face increasing pressure from competition in low-cost manufacturing countries to produce assembled boards at lower cost, with increased complexity and to tighter deadlines.
6.10 – Inventory management: combining business intelligence & material handling hardware
Monday, January 8, 2007— Most business intelligence (BI) tools and supply chain management (SCM) applications address inventory issues from either a software perspective or a material handling perspective;.
Efficient line changeover: the key to lean manufacturing
Monday, April 6, 2009— Changes in the domestic printed circuit board assembly industry have
resulted in a dominant shift to a high-mix, low-volume (HMLV)
manufacturing environment resulting in a high frequency of line
changeovers.
Nanotechnology and mathematical methods for high–performance thermal interface materials
Monday, June 16, 2008— Higher power chips have resulted from a variety of new developments in the electronics industry.
Parts management
Tuesday, January 4, 2011— Almost 30 years after the fact, we’re still asking PCB designers to “build their own fonts” (so to speak) on a daily basis, to great expense.
How to use 3D solder paste inspection (SPI) to improve SMT printing process
Tuesday, January 4, 2011— According to some study, about 60-80% of the defects in the entire SMT are due to print quality.
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Videos
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Hitachi at IPC APEX Expo 2011
Matt Wyglendowski introduces the new Sigma platform from Hitachi. The focus of the machine is flexibility, high speed placement and accuracy, and offers one of the largest component ranges in the industry.
MYDATA Automation at IPC APEX Expo 2009
Brian Duffey introduces the Flow Line for lean manufacturing.
Valor Division of Mentor Graphics Corporation SMT/HYBRID/PACKAGING 2011
Michael Ford shows off some interesting new materials management products from the Valor Division of Mentor Graphics, which are of incresaing interest to manufacturers during this time of component and materials shortages.
Cogiscan at productronica 2011
Trevor Galbraith interviews André Corriveau, Co-President, Product Management
of Cogiscan at productronica 2011 in Munich
Vi Technology at SMT/HYBRID/PACKAGING 2010
Chris Davies, Vi Technology's sales director, shows off the 5K Perform for high-quality, high-reliability detection for boards up to 535 mm square. Equipped with Vi Technology's proven vision technology, it can inspect components down to 01005.
DEK at SMT/HYBRID/PACKAGING 2011
Stefan Techau talks about the three new highlights of their product range: ProActiv, which enhances print quality; Nano-ProTek for coating stencils for improved yield; and HawkEye inspection software.
MVP at APEX IPC Expo
Machine Vision Products had five new product offerings, including the MVP Ultra V which has an accuracy of 3-5 µm, an 8 megapixel camera and a speed increase over its predecessor of 40 percent. The Ultra SPI system is a combination of 2D and 3D with a speed reaching 5" per second. The system uses real-time data resulting in very low false call rates. Another new introduction is the ID Code for bottom side inspection of selective soldering inspection and bar codes. MVP also launched two line management software systems.
For more information, please visit: www.machinevisionproducts.com
Video Editor: Elisangela Dahlke
WKK TECHNOLOGY PARK
From humble beginnings as a tiny single sided PCB shop in the early 50's, Hong Kong based Wong's Kong King International (Holdings) Limited (WKK) has today become one of the largest electronics industrial equipment distributors in Asia under the stewardship of Chairman and CEO Mr. Senta Wong. Its Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) business of WKK Technology Ltd. (WKKT) pulls rank as the world's Top 17th EMS business in 2005, when it made a quantum leap from its 23rd position in 2003.
WKK is an EMS company which provides manufacturing services to global customers in the USA, Europe, Japan and Asia Pacific. For us, international certification is critical so there is "common understanding" regarding Quality Level and System which is what WKK strongly stands by.
WKK have a specially built leisure facility for their workers and test sources of water and food for their health and wellbeing. They also take care of their people by providing clinical services, convenience store, gymnasium, computer/library, theatre/TV rooms etc. They wholeheartedly encourage everyone to develop whole person skills as they provide ample training and job rotation opportunities.
For more information, please visit: http://www.wkkintl.com
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From our Columnists
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Thermal management, part 2
Friday, August 12, 2011— Last month opened this discussion of thermal management, providing background as to the importance of thermal management predicated on transistor density increase, and the rise in on-chip frequencies that are combining to increase thermal energy densities on the IC.
Thermal management, part 1
Wednesday, July 6, 2011— As chip features shrink, transistor density increases, on-chip frequencies rise, and so also do the thermal energy densities on the IC.
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Latest SMT Answers questions
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There are no questions related to this area at this time. Visit the SMT Answers section to ask your own or explore questions from other process areas and topics. |
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Latest Products
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IMS releases compact thick film 7GHz SMT Wilkinson Power Divider
Thursday, May 23, 2013—International Manufacturing Services, Inc. (IMS), a manufacturer and supplier of high quality thick film chip resistors, terminations, attenuators and other RF components to the electronics industry, announces the availability of its compact Thick Film 7GHz SMT Wilkinson Power Divider.
The model IMD2613 has a 20% bandwidth and exhibits insertion loss less than 0.5dB at its center frequency.
DfR Solutions announces enhanced Sherlock release 3.0
Thursday, May 23, 2013—DfR Solutions, a leader in quality, reliability, and durability (QRD) solutions for the electronics industry, announced the new 3.0 release of its Automated Design AnalysisTM software, Sherlock. Sherlock is the first-of-its-kind automated design analysis software for analyzing, grading, and certifying the expected reliability of products at the circuit card assembly level.
New SIPLACE platform for price-sensitive medium-size and small producers
Wednesday, May 22, 2013—With its brand-new SIPLACE Di-Series the SIPLACE team of ASM Assembly Systems now offers proven placement quality and maximum process reliability in combination with innovative software also in the low-price segment. Technological details which are rare in this segment, such as digital vision systems, single and dual conveyors and modern, multi-language station software, are standard features on the SIPLACE Di-Series.
North Star Imaging, Inc. releases efX-CT 1.6 and efX-DR 1.0
Monday, May 20, 2013—North Star Imaging has unveiled its latest versions of Computed Tomography and Digital Radiography software – efX-CT 1.6 and efX-DR 1.0. These releases feature many new capabilities that are industry firsts and not available anywhere else in the marketplace.
The new software releases focus heavily on speed, automation, and image quality. Throughput capabilities have been highly improved due to streamlined data acquisition control as well as extensive automation features in the system calibration and image acquisition steps.
BPM Microsystems improves traceability with new laser marker software feature
Thursday, May 16, 2013—By downloading the latest BPWin software release, 3000 and 4000 series users with a laser marker can mark an additional line of text that specifies the programming socket location. This feature can help trace the programmed device back to the specific programming socket location for improved traceability and quality assurance. The socket location laser mark feature is an enhancement over previous software versions that allowed customers to mark serial numbers and date and time.
Altium updated flagship product to enhance design process
Tuesday, May 14, 2013—Altium Limited, a global leader in Smart System Design Automation and provider of solutions for 3D PCB design (Altium Designer) and embedded software development, has launched Altium Designer 13.2 to provide designers with greater control over design data and a clearer view throughout the development process. Altium Designer 13.2 offers enhanced design documentation and supply chain management, ultimately saving time and money throughout the design process.
Viscom X8011 PCB is now available with automatic X-ray inspection and quality uplink
Thursday, April 11, 2013—Many soldered connections can only be reliably checked with X-ray inspection. Viscom’s X8011 PCB high-resolution manual X-ray inspection (MXI) system was developed especially for these tasks. Now electronics manufacturers can draw on Viscom’s first-class automatic analysis routines of the X7056 family of automatic X-ray inspection (AXI) systems with this offline solution as well. Thus, the X8011 PCB system can now be equipped with the unique Viscom Quality Uplink.
ADLINK announces latest industrial mobile handheld computer IMX-9000 satisfies the market demand of with the Windows CE operating system
Friday, April 5, 2013—ADLINK Technology, Inc. (TAIEX: 6166), a manufacturer of industrial computing products, announced the IMX-9000, an industrial mobile handheld computer using the Windows CE 6.0 R3 operating system. Combining high-performance RFID, a barcode scanner and GPRS/WLAN wireless transmission functions to satisfy diverse working requirements, the IMX-9000, with superior resistance to impact, water, and dust, can be applied in a variety of industries, including fully supported logistics management, transportation, retail and factory automation.
IMS introduces non-magnetic chip resistors with ultra leach resistant terminals for MRI applications
Monday, March 25, 2013—International Manufacturing Services, Inc. (IMS), a manufacturer of high quality thick film resistors, terminations, attenuators, couplers, thermal management devices, planar dividers and planar filters to the electronics industry, has introduced a new type or chip resistor terminal which are non‐magnetic and ultra leach resistant.
The Ultra Leach Resistant (ULR) type terminals have been proven to maintain their integrity in the harshest solder environments, including high temperature and multiple reflows, withstanding up to 15 minutes at 260°C. The
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Manufacturers
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Section coming soon!
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Industry News
