The primary purposes of investing in factory automation and smart factory design are to save labor costs, improve product yield, reduce operational intensity, and effectively arrange production to achieve effective coordination among various processes and optimal factory operation. Additionally, it can control inventory, reduce waste during production, and minimize losses caused by material transfer.
Ten years ago, the PCB industry was not developing as rapidly as it is today. Labor costs were relatively low, automation equipment technology still had certain technical barriers, and the relative costs were high. Under the circumstances of pursuing short-term benefits, the vast majority of factories chose the low-cost manual labor model. With the maturation of automation technology, the year-by-year increase in labor costs, and the decline in product processes and profit margins, automation is one of the most effective means to reduce costs and increase profits.
Misconceptions
Although achieving automated production is an important means of improving a company's profitability, many enterprises have some misconceptions when selecting automation equipment.
First, many decision-makers believe that automation equipment is simply about replacing people—substituting manual labor at a certain position—without considering the transfer and connection between processes. For example, adding a simple board collector to the post-plating treatment line (also considering equipment price), where the board collection uses a simple flat trolley, while adding an automated board loader to the pre-treatment scrubbing line, where the loader for perforated boards can only use an L-type rack. In between, manual conversion of the boards is still required, which often leads to scratches, excessive stacking of boards, and frequent situations where the loader cannot separate two or more boards, greatly reducing the efficiency of automation.
Second, the current product structure chain of the enterprise itself is not suitable for automation equipment. Many customers with current production capacity below 20,000 square meters mostly have very complex product structures, with numerous part numbers and specifications, different board thicknesses, and different sizes. Many are small-batch productions, and it is possible that several specifications of boards may be on the same scrubbing line at the same time. This poses a great challenge to the requirements for automation equipment. Manual workers may be able to distinguish between them, but automation equipment has not yet reached the point of completely replacing humans. Currently, automatic board loaders in the industry cannot stably load boards of different thicknesses on the same carrier plate, yet enterprises attribute the resulting instability of automation equipment to the equipment itself.
Third, the preliminary design and layout planning of many factories is currently unreasonable. Many enterprises still think this way: first, determine the positions of all main equipment, position horizontal line and other equipment, then partition the rooms and layout, and if there is still room for automation, choose some automation equipment; otherwise, choose manual labor. In fact, the correct approach should be to first select reasonable main equipment processes based on the site, coordinate with automation equipment planning, determine the logistics direction of trolleys and carriers, and then proceed with room partitioning to achieve smooth automated logistics flow.
Fourth, uncertainty about the factory's future main business and the process uncertainty of adopted equipment also cause equipment changes, which bring significant instability factors to automation equipment configuration. Many factories initially plan for Product A and select process equipment related to Product A, but later switch to Product B, modifying and replacing the previous Product A-related equipment, making it impossible for the automation equipment configuration to achieve the originally planned effect. For example, the initial plan was to separate inner and outer layer etching lines, but currently, to save energy in the short term, a shared line is used, resulting in neither the outer layer board collector nor the inner layer board collector being able to achieve universal applicability as originally planned.
Fifth, many equipment manufacturers and enterprises are vigorously developing Industry 4.0 equipment in an attempt to quickly capture the market and achieve promotional and first-mover advantages. Many enterprises are also eager to carry out smart factory transformations, expecting to achieve the anticipated results. However, there are not many successful cases, and there are many reasons for this. Equipment stability from manufacturers, the rationality of enterprise product structures, the connection between previously purchased equipment and current automation equipment, the communication interfaces between previous factory ERP systems and modern industrial process equipment, and the logistics direction channels planned in advance are all major factors determining whether a modern smart factory can be realized.
However, we can still strive in this direction. With the continuous optimization of equipment stability and planning, it is certainly possible for future factories to achieve intelligence.
Recommendations
In view of the above points, combined with Jinxinkai Technology's automation equipment, here are several recommendations for enterprises that plan to deploy automation equipment and carry out smart factory planning in the future:
1) Determine the main product processes and reasonably arrange the matching of processes and automation equipment;
2) When selecting automation equipment, consider the connection between processes to reduce product defects and manual workload caused by unnecessary carrier changes;
3) Reasonably design capacity buffer planning to reduce inconveniences brought by intelligent AGV logistics vehicles;
4) Adopt equipment with current new processes to ensure more seamless integration with automation;
5) Achieve reasonable process coordination through the docking of factory internal ERP data with on-site equipment parameters;
6) More effectively communicate and execute product process parameters on-site (see Jinxinkai Smart Factory Design Planning for details);
7) Re-plan the factory interior in conjunction with existing equipment to achieve semi-automation and full automation;
8) Increase understanding of modern smart factories and automation equipment manufacturers, and achieve truly reasonable automation planning based on one's own conditions.
The above is merely my personal opinion. To truly realize automated factories and smart factories, the joint efforts of all colleagues in the industry and enterprise users are still needed to secure our place in China's manufacturing industry during the major environmental transformation.