“Today’s electronics producers do not want to make trade-offs between speed and flexibility,” says Robert Göthner, General Manager Business Area SMT at Micronic Mydata. “Many have expanded their customer bases to include a diversity of customers with wide-ranging needs. In the morning, they’re mounting ten high-value boards for a demanding application; the same day they’re doing a thousand PCBs for mainstream electronic products.” According to Göthner, the issue is not about “high speed” or “low speed.” Instead, producers are being challenged to be responsive, flexible and productive – no matter what the batch size or type of product. He adds that tomorrow’s production lines will need to “shape-shift” from small-scale new product introductions (NPI) to full-scale volume production – and back again.
“We see a perfect match between this growing need and our fully integrated automated factory solutions,” says Göthner, who points out that customers are becoming increasingly demanding. “There is no room for excesses – nobody wants to be stuck with excess staff for kitting, excess components or excess downtime.” High-mix thinking is coming into its own, says Mydata, whether manufacturing for the medical or aerospace industries or communications and automotive sectors.
