Koh Young's Joel Scutchfield on Smart Factory Connectivity

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Scutchfield: I think you have to take that approach. The fear of failure is what has the potential to stifle anyone who is on this path. Eliminating that fear from the process really frees you up to do a lot of different things that you otherwise would not be able to do. It certainly helps that Dr. Koh provides the financial stability for innovations to be investigated, evaluated, and pursued. It's a good place to be when the leadership stands behind the pursuit of our goals, and then gives you the bandwidth to achieve them. He continues to raise the bar higher and makes sure we are supported to carry out those goals. Even if we fall short, we're still further ahead than we were before we started. We learn, regroup, and continue to pursue that stretch goal.

This is very much the Koh Young way. The voice of the customer plays a huge role in our development process. We visit Korea several times a year and meet with R&D teams to communicate our customers’ needs face to face. All the while, we are being mindful of the big picture and how our efforts can better mankind. That comes back to what I said earlier; if we can collectively help our customers build a high-quality product at the absolute lowest cost possible, then they win. From there, they can create other good things that help the rest of society win as well.

Matties: You keyed into the one area I did want to end this with. You talked about taking data that you've learned from the marketplace—the trends and such—back to your R&D department. What sort of trends or requests are the manufacturers putting on you right now?

Scutchfield: There's multiple. Obviously, when you are the inspection technology leader, the underlying premise is about how to adapt the technology in other ways. To that end, there are various conversations ongoing about multiple projects that are driven by the voice of the customer. At the forefront is, “How do we better use our data? How do we fuel an AI engine to realize a smart factory?” Many elements have already been completed, but there is so much more we will do going forward.

Beyond that, there are some very specific technologies within PCBA that we have progressed. For example, pin or terminal inspection. There's a real need for inspecting pins on the board and component level. Our automotive customers ask to inspect and measure staked pins and press fit pins. We also receive requests to measure the pins inside connectors for height and perpendicularity to ensure proper mating to ensure the connection won’t be compromised.

We've developed specific technologies for inspecting various pin styles like straight pins, board terminals, forked terminals, and a lot of critical distance measurement capability as well. That's just one example. We have other applications being evaluated and pursued, some of which are not specific to PCB applications. For instance, we are pursuing 3D inspection for machined parts, which requires a dedicated solution—things like metal cases where we inspect for blemishes, scratches, chips, and more. In a nutshell, we use our 3D technology in multiple applications outside of electronics manufacturing to provide solutions that customers, quite frankly, are seeking. They bring these challenges to us, and we've been very successful in providing solutions.

Matties: Joel, is there anything that we haven't talked about today that you feel we should include?

Scutchfield: I guess the one key thing I'll leave you with here is there's a lot of discussion in the marketplace about how to evaluate an inspection tool properly. Whether it be AOI or SPI, the key is you want to understand the company and what drives them. You certainly want to understand the technology under the hood and the system completely. It is important to look at how these three variables align with everything we talked about. Manufacturers need a company, technology, and system that can provide measurement-based, quantitative, parametric data. Everything else related to achieving the goal I talked about earlier begins with highly accurate, reliable data.

You must peel the onion because not all 3D systems are equal. Without a large dataset of reliable parametric information, you're not able to achieve everything we talked about today. Again, it’s the dataset that allows for the development of the AI engine, machine learning, and even industry 4.0 connectivity. As customers are moving forward, they should think about it in those terms. Look under the hood and make sure there is a logical method to the approach and ensure everything aligns to allow they want to achieve their goals.

Matties: Joel, we certainly appreciate you taking time out today for the interview, and we thank you very much.

Scutchfield: Thank you.

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