In November 2019, management from Smart Made Simple (SMS), made their bi-annual trip to Productronica, the world’s leading trade fair for electronics development and production, to find out what is new and hot to simplify, automate, and enhance their operations through systematic efficiency, transparency, and reliability.

The team, as usual, were very impressed with what they saw, and brought their findings back to their Prototype, Development, and Manufacturing Headquarters in Nottingham, UK to discuss with their Management Team.

At this point, Development Centre Manager, Andrew Challenger highlighted to the group the benefits that a new Automatic Optical Inspection (AOI) machine would bring to his department.  The Development Centre within SMS is a dedicated and purpose-built New Product Innovation (NPI) Centre, which was brought to market to enable innovative companies, both large and emerging, to harness innovation as a means of competitive advantage, and as an enabler to maintain pricing strength.

The Development Centre is a department dedicated to supporting customers’ needs for prototype, rapid build and low volume manufacture. The centre functions as an autonomous and dedicated area, with the flexibility to scale up to be able to tap into the resources of SMS manufacturing.

So, to continue the strong pattern for SMS, the company entered 2020 with a commitment to making strategic investments into its premises, people, and now physical assets in order to enhance its service offering.

The AOI equipment that the team decided to invest in is the Advanced Optics and 3D Imaging from CyberOptics. The new machine will complement SMS’ existing AOI, as they share a central database, and will be used alongside X-Ray to check component placement for 100% accuracy.

Productronica was a successful event for both SMS and CyberOptics, as CyberOptics was awarded a 2019 Global Technology Award in the category of Inspection – AOI for its SQ3000™ Multi-Function for AOI, SPI and CMM, the exact piece of equipment that SMS has purchased. Smart!

The 3D SQ3000 all-in-one system can identify critical defects and measure critical parameters, providing a superior process control solution for effective yield management. In addition to AOI and SPI applications, highly accurate coordinate measurements can be attained faster than a traditional Coordinate Measurement Machine (CMM) – in seconds, not hours. The world’s first in-line CMM includes an extensive software suite for metrology grade measurement on all critical points.

Andy Challenger, Development Centre Manager at SMS commented; “In addition to providing superior inspection and metrology performance, we are providing our customers with the flexibility to use the SQ3000 platform for various applications, for advanced process control and effective yield management.”

We are very excited to offer our customers the SQ3000 which provides an unmatched combination of high accuracy, high resolution, and high speed, with the industry-leading MRS sensor technology that meticulously identifies and rejects reflections caused by shiny components and surfaces. Effective suppression of multiple reflections is critical for highly accurate measurement, making the proprietary MRS technology an ideal solution for a wide range of applications with exacting requirements.

As a department that differentiates itself on speed, in an industry where speed-to-market matters, we are delighted to be able to offer our Development Centre customers this level of agility and accuracy.”

About SMS – Smart Made Simple

The U.K.’s leading Manufacturing Service Provider.

From concept to creation, to commercialisation, to customer, for all technology companies. Whether you are a start-up, or an established household brand name, if you have a design, engineering, manufacturing or supply chain problem, thanks to the diversity of our experience and scalable service, SMS has the solution.

Since 1920, SMS has manufactured electronics products from the same home in Nottingham, U.K. For 100 years, we have been the company behind the ideas, offering agile and adaptive supply chain solutions, that bring products to market faster, smarter and simpler.
 
Leader in the specialist low volume, highly complex manufacturing services market space, SMS has earned critical industry facility certifications, that brings full viability and credibility to the aerospace & defence, communications, industrial and medical markets. SMS brings the right scale, capabilities and competitive solutions to customers needing high-reliability attention, product realisation and supply chain optimisation.

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