eSMART Factory Conference 2019, Day 1

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

1. Communication protocol, including advanced message queuing protocol (AMQP) used in banking

• Secure (like a bank ATM)
• Encrypted (as an option)
• Send and forget (host)
• Point to point (direct)

2. Defined language content

• Structured topics and messages across all manufacturing elements (materials, machines, production, resource performance, maintenance, information systems)
• Easily build a model for any type of automation

3. Data encoded using JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)

IPC has made available free, open-source software development kits (SDK) for Windows, .Net, Linux, Java, etc., including:

• Extended-reach Linux SDK
  • Small outline integrated circuit (SOIC) CFX client (20 mm x 20 mm for a $9 chip)
  • CFX client kernel (
  • Examples: Inside a soldering iron, torque wrench, pick-and-place machine, etc.

• For dumb machines
  • CFX client on Raspberry Pi ($35)
  • Multi-digital I/O with tailored software
  • Example: Seica “shoebox”

IPC was also able to put together CFX because of an older standard—IPC-2581, the digital product model. CFX includes a complete digital PCB product model all in a single file with design and local bill of materials (BOM) data, process information and variants. Further, it is ready for direct process engineering tasks, is suitable for legacy products, and provides complete machine-readable data for all aspects of PCB manufacturing. Further, CFX is the only standard that provides electronic stackup exchange and is proven to improve product quality and first-pass success, enabling smart factory best practices. For more information on CFX and IPC-2581, visit www.ipc-cfx.org.

The third presentation, "Deployment Excellence: Electronic Production Process Planning," was presented by David Meyers of Siemens PLM. He gave an overview of Siemens’ software products for electronics assembly. The electronics market is one of the world's largest at $2.1 trillion with a steady 3.2% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Computers and telecommunications are the largest segments, but automotive is the fastest growing at 4.2% CAGR. Top generators of electronic revenues are China, the U.S., Japan, and Germany. PCB assembly and box-build are a $400 million market with 5.1% CAGR. There is estimated to be over 20,000 SMT lines worldwide with 60% being OEM and 40% CEM (but this excludes Foxconn, the largest OEM). Electronics is the most dynamically growing market with innovations adding new products, such as autonomous vehicles, IoT connected everything, 5G, and augmented and virtual reality. Thus, electronics assembly provides the greatest opportunity for the smart factory.

Modern manufacturing also introduces many new challenges:

• Lot sizes are getting smaller, heading toward a custom lot size of one
• Materials, especially components, are sensitive and growing in cost and complexity
• Flexibility in the workforce is essential along with rapid training
• Data collections are growing and must be used effectively
• Planning and optimization become the foundation of profitability
• Top quality is expected even with rapid product evolution

Siemens' suite of product lifecycle management (PLM) products is called Camstar and consists of:

• Enterprise resource planning (ERP), PLM, manufacturing analysis, design verification, manufacturing planning, production execution
• Advanced materials management to reduce inventory, waste, and inspection/repair
• Support for the digital twin of product, production, and performance
• Intelligent data formats of Mentor, Valor, ODB++, open manufacturing language (OML), and OPC unified architecture (OPC UA)
• Seamless new product introduction (NPI) integration with detailed planning and scheduling
• Plug-and-play shop floor connectivity hardware

Meyers concluded with three eSmart Factory case studies, including 1) their own Furth assembly facility in Germany, 2) a high-volume telecommunications, such as the federal telecommunications system (FTS), and 3) a high-volume automotive FTS.

The fourth presentation was by Michael Schuldenfrei of Optimal Plus on "Smart Manufacturing: Shifting the Focus From Machine to Product." He has focused on the rapidly growing automotive electronics market and its need for new levels of quality and reliability for its electronics.

The automotive electronics environment has the following challenges:

• 90% of car innovations and new features are driven by electronics; for example, 7,000 semiconductor devices/car X 1 dppm failure rate X 4,000 cars produced/day = 1 car failure an hour and 50% of failures are “no defect found”
• 22% of warranty costs are related to electronics and semiconductors
• 3X increase in car recalls from 2014–2016 due to electronics
• By 2025, it is estimated that 50% of a car’s cost will be for electronics

These challenges can only be solved by adding a product-centric approach to advanced analytics. Data sources must expand from machine data to product data as well. Analytics have to collect and harmonize data from all parts of manufacturing. And this data must be turned into actions unified across all silos, including product, process, machine, and time.

The product-centric approach has three application characteristics:

1. Queries

• Multiple dimensions handled in a single query (product, equipment, genealogy, measurements)
• Complex filtering, grouping, and aggregating in the database (descriptive statistics, pre-filtering of outliers, aggregations)
• Data schema and query engine must be scalable, flexible, and comprehensive

2. Applications

• Should answer questions like:
  • Which configuration parameters in the reflow oven best predict inspection failures?
  • Which boards contain chips from a specific batch of wafers?
  • Which combination of parts is likely to cause failures?
• The user experience must be simple

3. Actions

• Should do things like:
  • Prevent bad parts from shipping
  • Reduce scrap
  • Drift detection
• Requires end-to-end integration, control, and monitoring across the supply chain