Machine data for SPC?

It looks like there's another one or two threads somewhat similar, but allow me to pose another. We've only about two years experience in SMD production, and we're just starting to really ramp-up. As we stand right now, I'm not recieving information back from our technicians about assembly errors until about a month after production. This is partly a problem with our process, but as we're growing, I'd like to start looking at data collection and analyis software before we become too entrenched in our ways.

My question is two-fold, I guess. I've got two pick&place, a printer, and an AOI that I'd like to collect data off of - things along the lines of uptime/downtime, product times, rejections, etc. How are you generally interfacing with the machines to do this? I looked around in my documentation, but couldn't find much. All machines have ethernet, but I wonder whether it's something lower-level?

Second, what software packages are people using, or familiar with for this application? I've talked to both AIS, and really liked their product, but the price was prohibitive. I'm not looking to spend as much as I'd pay for a new pick/place for a software package - the argument could be made that it's equally important - but it's not going to happen.

Thanks in advance for your responses. -john.

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