Show & Tell Feature: Happy’s Highlights

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I traveled to San Diego for IPC APEX EXPO 2020. The sky is clear and blue, the seagulls are hungry, and it’s warm! It was 28°F when I left Grand Rapids, Michigan, for California. Overall, it was a very well-attended and successful show.

Siemens’ Smart Factory Forum

I spent all day Monday at the Siemens’ Smart Factory Forum. This was an excellent program, as Siemens has been in this business for a long time. What Siemens wanted to tell us about was how they are integrating their acquisition of Valor/Mentor into the Siemens “Big Picture.” There wasn’t a lot of new information for me, but there were a lot of details of what Siemens is selling for electronics smart factories.

Siemens presenters opened with obligatory Industry 4.0 opportunities. Next, they shared the company’s definition of what that is and how it will affect your business. Then, it was on to the products and applications, as well as the connectivity and benefits.

Lastly, they had a customer share their case study of how they did it, and the benefits they gained from their investments. In Siemens’ case, they selected Computrol, an EMS provider of high-mix, high-reliability SMT assembly for mission-critical aerospace and medical electronics. In particular, they are now reporting:

• Reduced NPI time
• Reduced process preparation for recipe generation
• Increased material turnover
• Increased equipment utilization
• Reduced maintenance and unplanned downtime of equipment
• Reduced test dropout

Overall, it was an informative day, and I am sure we will see more of this material in Siemens’ papers and videos at other trade shows.

Show Highlights

The IPC APEX EXPO keynote by Burt Rutan was excellent. The entire hour was way too short, and Burt got a standing ovation when he finished. You can read a much more detailed account of the keynote in this issue. Fortunately, Burt spent 90 minutes in the I-Connect007 booth after his keynote, revealing more stories and answering more questions. That interview will be available very soon!

I spent the rest of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday attending technical paper presentations, IPC Committee meetings, and walking the floor reviewing the exhibits. For me, the important meetings on the evolution of IPC-2581 (DPMX) and IPC-2591 (CFX) were held on Monday and Tuesday.

To read this entire article, which appeared in the 2020 issue of Real Time With Show & Tell Magazine, click here.