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Happy’s Tech Talk #45: Designing the Smart Factory 
Standards Driving Factory of the Future
March 17, 2025 | Marcy LaRont, PCB007 MagazineEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Thomas Marktscheffel, product manager for ASMPT’s software portfolio, has been deeply involved with IPC committee and standards work for many years. He chairs the IPC HERMES-9852 standard committee and is involved in the evolving DCX standard.
In this conversation, Thomas discusses the challenges of skilled labor shortages and the rising significance of cybersecurity in modern manufacturing. He emphasizes the collaborative effort required from various vendors to achieve a truly intelligent and efficient factory ecosystem, highlighting the importance of data-driven automation, AI integration, and seamless interoperability through adopting standards. Thomas is enthusiastic about what is possible today with manufacturing’s use of data and how that is an evolved vision for Factory of the Future. Though this industry buzzphrase is currently focused solely on EMS, it is reflective of what is coming for PCB fabricators as well.
Marcy LaRont: Thomas, why do we need IPC standards to work toward a Factory of the Future vision for our organizations?
Thomas Marktscheffel: The Factory of the Future is a data-driven factory. At first, it was about simple automation. Then came the Smart factory, which analyzed data to drive decisions about automating workflows. Now, we have artificial intelligence. Of course, the Factory of the Future will be AI-based, not only in analyzing the data and looking for correlations but also in learning from what has happened to a project and what will happen in the future.
This will be the “Intelligent Factory,” and it will be automated as much as possible. More than ever, we need transparency to know what’s going on. There are deadlines for production, quality requirements, and yield costs. My priority is to know what is happening in my production to make the right decisions and know that what I promised is happening seamlessly and in an integrated way. But there is no single machine or software vendor that can do it all.
A Factory of the Future is always a combination and cooperation between different vendors. As a manufacturer, I don't want to be concerned about where and how they come together; it simply must work. That's seamless integration. It must be easy to deploy with new equipment because, as a manufacturer, I don't have days or weeks for integrating this new equipment into my intelligent factory.
To continue reading this article, which originally appeared in the March 2025 SMT007 Magazine, click here.
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