Chicago, Illinois, USA – Flextron Circuit Assembly, a full-service contract electronics manufacturer, has added 3D Solder Paste Inspection (SPI) capability and Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) to its PCBA manufacturing lines, ensuring high quality and reliability in its finished electronic assemblies.

ASM visualizes the Smart Factory with Augmented Reality, CFX demo, Workflow solutions

WNIE live presents companies with a high profile and cost-effective opportunity to increase their visibility and promote their expertise to key engineers, managers and executives from all sectors of the UK electronics industry.

By Phil Aponte, Siemens

With the majority of today’s consumer electronics being supplied from Asia, primarily through contract manufacturers which utilize a very high level of manual assembly labor, there is an increasing trend towards automation.   For example, as Chinese labor rates continue to escalate, in an instant replay of the Japan scenario of the 70’s and 80’s, more offshoring is being transferred to lower cost labor markets in Southeast Asia, particularly India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.  However, as these countries also seek experience a similar increase in labor cost, the need for higher level automation and use of collaborative robots will accelerate.