Building on the enthusiasm surrounding its latest platform innovation, ASM Assembly Systems hosted private customer demonstration sessions for its E by SIPLACE mid-speed placement system during a week-long roadshow in Southern California from May 15-19.
Organized in partnership with authorized E by SIPLACE USA distributor, Technica USA, and regional manufacturer’s representative, PMR, the event took place at Technica’s 23,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art facility in Santa Ana, California.
“The roadshow structure is extremely beneficial for all involved,” says ASM Senior Manager Regional Marketing Americas, Mark Ogden. “As the sessions are private, one-on-one discussions about individual applications and production requirements, customers are at ease sharing their manufacturing challenges. The ASM team can then present machine and software solutions tailored to customers’ specific product assemblies and manufacturing environments. ASM has been producing these events for nearly 15 years and customer feedback continues to be overwhelmingly positive.”
Launched in 2016, E by SIPLACE has emerged as the industry benchmark for mid-range, multi-product, high-changeover environments that demand superior flexibility, ease-of-use, exceptional quality and affordability. Equipped with many of the advanced capabilities of ASM’s high-volume equipment, E by SIPLACE offers manufacturers in the mid-speed market features such as 100% digital vision inspection, easy-to-use software and placement head flexibility to tackle the complexities of product variation, NPI demands, quick-turn prototypes, specialized high-value products and shorter planning cycles. The platform is ideal for US-based manufacturers who are facing these realities and, during the course of the week-long roadshow, the challenges associated with quick-turn prototype work were illuminated.
“Turning incoming data and materials into finished product as quickly and efficiently as possible is the goal of any new NPI project,” explains Ogden, noting that this is often challenging because CAD placement program data often doesn’t align with printed circuit board (PCB) Gerber data. “Sometimes, the two data sets meet for the first time in the placement machine. If they don’t match, it’s problematic. This, in addition to last-minute arrival of exotic components, unexpected component packaging and precise part count cut-tape builds underscores the need for highly-capable software technology.”
The E by SIPLACE platform comes equipped with E-Pro software, which enables flexibility and adaptation to dynamic manufacturing conditions. Component shapes that are unknown can be noted as “incomplete”, yet the program is still downloadable to the machine. E by SIPLACE can be paused in the middle of a build to teach component shape and position on-the-fly. These software features, among others, allow production to continue with no scrap or rework required.
“From the software flexibility to the advanced SIPLACE Smartfeeder E feeder technology to JTF tray handling, E by SIPLACE helps the mid-speed manufacturer manage the ever-changing production environment and realize high-yield results,” concludes Ogden. “Roadshow guests were impressed with E by SIPLACE’s breadth of capability and affordability.”
For more information about E by SIPLACE, visit www.e-by-siplace.com. ASM’s next scheduled roadshow will take place in Nashua, New Hampshire during the week of August 7th. To schedule an appointment, contact Nick Crocker by phone at 908-752-2596 or via e-mail at nick.crocker@asmpt.com.