SIPLACE Whispering-down-the-Line raises the line output
Electronics manufactures who want to eliminate having to empty the line before running a new product or who want to use ink spots to prevent components from being placed on bad clusters can now benefit from significant improvements in SIPLACE's new Whispering-down-the-Line (WDTL) functionalities. With the new SIPLACE software release, barcodes can now be used to automatically change placement programs along the entire line by placing a single barcode reader at the entry to the first placement machine. This reduces the investment costs and results in much more robust processes, because line stops caused by reading errors in subsequent readers are now a thing of the past. When products change, the barcodes can trigger placement program changes with no manual interference and with no need to let the line go empty. In tests on high-volume lines with frequent product changeovers, the new feature resulted in efficiency improvements of up to ten percent.
Pilot users of the new SIPLACE WDTL option estimated the efficiency improvement resulting from barcode-based process control at between five and ten percent, depending on the volume and frequency of product changeovers on the lines.
With the new WDTL software, even ink spots that are supposed to prevent the populating of bad clusters only have to be detected by the PCB vision system of the first SIPLACE machine. The software automatically passes the information to the downstream placement machines, which saves time by eliminating the need to execute further reads down the line.
The new Release 704 of the SIPLACE Station Software offers a new and much more efficient WDTL option. In the future, a single barcode reader in the first machine is all it takes to initiate placement program changes automatically and execute on-the-fly product changeovers. This eliminates the need to empty the line, making the entire line much more efficient. The new WDTL option also eliminates the need to invest in additional readers, which previously had to be installed in each machine on the line. Finally, with the new software the operators have to configure only a single reader.
Up to ten percent more efficient
In the future, the barcode information will be transmitted across all machines exclusively via software. This transfer method results in significantly more robust processes, because as the number of readers drops, so does the chance of errors during physical reads and thus the number of line stops and operator interventions. Pilot users of the new SIPLACE WDTL option estimated the efficiency improvement resulting from barcode-based process control at between five and ten percent, depending on the volume and frequency of product changeovers on the lines.
The WDTL option also includes the transfer of ink spot information about the usability of individual clusters. For example, using ink spots makes it easy to prevent bad clusters from being populated, which saves on component costs. Here, too, the vision system in the first SIPLACE machine reads the information and passes it down the line. Thanks to the powerful SIPLACE vision systems, the ink spot read process takes merely 20 milliseconds in most cases – less than one-tenth of the time required by comparable systems from other manufacturers (approx. 250 milliseconds). And the greater the number of clusters, the greater the speed gain, because thanks to the new WDTL option only a single read process is required. The read process has virtually no impact on the optimized cycle times, but it significantly improves the quality and efficiency of the entire placement process.
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