Customized Assembly

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For customized assembly of boards, quantity 1 to ~ at a mome... - Aug 21, 2003 by James

Wow, You're breaking into some fun stuff. Holding WIP is e... - Aug 21, 2003 by Justin Medernach

We assemble and stock "phantom boards" that we later configu... - Aug 21, 2003 by davef

When I said partial build I should have clarified that all t... - Aug 22, 2003 by James

Don't forget moisture senitive devices. If you have them on... - Aug 22, 2003 by

James

#25539

Customized Assembly | 21 August, 2003

For customized assembly of boards, quantity 1 to ~ at a moments notice, do you have a dedicated cell or do you break into standard production?

There is an idea floating around that we should be able to partially build up boards to a standard level and then when a customer orders with the options they want we will be able to build, test, and ship within 24 - 48 hours. I don't think partially building the boards makes sense as you are adding multiple operations; it makes more sense to me to just build to order from scratch. Let me know what you think.

They don't want to have machine programs for every possible option as it could be up to 1,000,000 so is it possible to have a machine that can automatically configure itself to populate the board using a spreadsheet or something similar?

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks

James

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Justin Medernach

#25544

Customized Assembly | 21 August, 2003

Wow, You're breaking into some fun stuff. Holding WIP is expensive, ineffective, and typically gives you more quality headaches than you know what to do with. What are you going to do with your partially built up boards? Are you going to hand solder everything after the partial build? What if someone loaded an incorrect reel? That just sounds nutty doesn't it. World Class Manufacturing says "build to order." Use SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die) techniques to minimize internal changeover and maximize external change over. Try things like: a.) Fix the standardized feeders in the same location each time. Never take them off the machines. b.) Have your upcoming jobs' components preloaded to minimize that internal set up time. c.) Have all tooling ready for your upcoming job before it's time to build. This way, you're not hunting for tooling while your line is down. d.) Test what you're building, while your building to improve quality, through put, and yield.

It's a daunting task, don't get me wrong. Many companies have achieved amazing results using these techniques. Read about Shigeo Shingo. His concepts are right in line with your inquisition.

Regards, Justin

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davef

#25554

Customized Assembly | 21 August, 2003

We assemble and stock "phantom boards" that we later configure and ship to meet customer requirements. We designed these boards to minimize inventory and maximize customer response.

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James

#25572

Customized Assembly | 22 August, 2003

When I said partial build I should have clarified that all the boards we build are double sided so the plan is to build the bottom side then build the top side as they are ordered. The bottom will be standard and the top will have the options.

I did find out we can have our machine place components programmed to badmarks to get the machine to build without operator intervention, one badmark for each option.

James

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Stephen

#25573

Customized Assembly | 22 August, 2003

Don't forget moisture senitive devices. If you have them on the bottom side, usually you do the other side before it is an issue, but if you are going to store the boards for a while it could be an issue. Where I am, partially building product then configuring when a customer orders would be great but unfeasible. We even pretty much treat every run as a first run because we have such variety and so many changes, it's easier than trying to keep track of what is built the same way as the previous time it was run and what has changed.

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