The acquisition makes ASM Pacific Technology the world’s third-largest supplier of SMT solutions. It also makes ASMPT the first equipment maker who can offer products and solutions for electronics production requirements from the backend (wafer production) to the frontend (SMT placement).
 
At the company’s press conference in Shenzhen, Joe Poh, head of SIPLACE China, and Herbert Hoffmann, COO SIPLACE China, made clear that the SIPLACE team in its new constellation wants to rapidly expand its presence and its portfolio of products and services in the world’s most important market. The two managers took the press conference as an opportunity to present a look at the work being done by the joint ASMPT-SIPLACE development teams. They also presented placement solutions that were specially designed to meet the needs of Chinese electronics manufacturers.
 
"SIPLACE China plays a central role in two ways: Our team operates in the world’s most important regional market, and as SIPLACE China, we perform an important bridge function for the integration of the two companies. With its German engineering, SIPLACE has for many years been a recognised technology leader and the No. 1 in the European market, while ASMPT is the No. 1 in backend solutions thanks to its leading position in Asia.  By taking care of our local customers as SIPLACE China, we want to make sure that SIPLACE becomes the world’s leading placement machine maker over the medium term," said Joe Poh, head of SIPLACE China, about the strategy of the new company.
 
A strong presence and direct customer support
SIPLACE China’s already strong presence will be the basis for its continuing growth. With seven sales offices, thirteen service centers, two training centers, several spare parts warehouses and one application and technology center each, SIPLACE offers its Chinese customers lots of direct support. While many other equipment makers are only represented through dealers, SIPLACE wants to steadily expand its presence in China in order to provide its customers with quick and competent on-site support.
 
Developed in and for Asia: SIPLACE DX
With its highly flexible SIPLACE SX, which has already won several awards at Asian trade shows, SIPLACE has managed to expand its position in the high-end segment and among larger EMS providers in Asia. With its SIPLACE DX, the company is now rolling out a new platform that was developed in close cooperation with Chinese customers and whose price-performance ratio was designed especially to meet the needs of the many small and medium-sized producers in China.
 
"Like all their competitors worldwide, Chinese manufacturers are confronted with strict quality requirements as well as with increasingly frequent product and setup changeovers and steadily rising labour costs. With our SIPLACE SX and SIPLACE DX series with their modular hardware and software expansion options, we offer the kinds of platforms our customer need to optimise their production processes and get a leg up on their competitors," said Herbert Hoffmann, COO SIPLACE China, during the presentation of the latest SIPLACE developments.
 
Particularly for the important NPI, product changeover and production run processes, SIPLACE solutions deliver clear advantages. One such example, said Hoffmann, is the latest generation of intelligent X-feeders, whose contactless power and data transmission capability enables them to be hot-swapped with no need for a line stop. Thanks to their unique IDs, the machine recognises them and makes any necessary adjustments, and their LEDs signal their status and upcoming setup changeovers to the operating staff.
 
SmartGUI: Clear instructions minimise downtime
The SIPLACE SmartGUI is a new user interface that helps the operating staff analyze, pinpoint and troubleshoot roughly 95 percent of all malfunctions with video-based support functions. As a result, lines can restart much sooner when something has gone wrong. For more complex malfunctions, the SmartGUI instructs the operator to call for a technician. With software-optimized family setups and flexible setup strategies like Random Setup, Split Table or Constant Table, SIPLACE lines also make faster or even non-stop setup changeovers possible.
 
"Incomplete product descriptions, missing or suddenly changing components, oversized components or PCBs, small lots with rapid setup changeovers or the monitoring of highly efficient production environments at the line or from remote monitoring stations – for all these requirements, SIPLACE offers modular solutions that can be customized for each customer’s individual production processes. We are convinced that more and more electronics producers in Asia are looking for such process advantages in order to translate them into competitive benefits, lower costs, more flexibility and better quality and efficiency," summarised Hoffmann.