Pick and Place Operation-Support Costs

Dr. Lou,

Your first question is influenced by many variables. New equipment will have the first year free parts, labor and service. You may discuss a long term at time of purchase. Older equipment may (depending on maintenance) have a higher chance for a service call. Our recent experience has been with Juki's (2 lines were 730's/740's, present 2 lines are 2010's/2020's). We averaged 1 service call about every 1 to 1 1/2 years on the 700 series. The 2 year old, 2000 series machine have yet to have a non-warranty service call. Ask vendor at time of purchase for referral list and call them.

Second issue; in-house support. The extra expense for an experienced and properly training tech is your most useful investment. Operator training, process development and any quality issue can be improved with a quality technician.

Third question; operator support. We run two, non-AOI, lines with 3 good operators. One line is generally running single-sided, less complex PCI/PMC sized boards. The second line runs mostly 6U sized, very complex double-sided boards and the extra operator for this line floats between the two line where needed. We are a med to high mix/ medium volume OEM manufacturer.

Hope this is useful to you and good luck! JW

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