Yamaha Robotics SMT Section is a trusted supplier of surface-mount assembly solutions, with six generations of high-speed precision mounters in action on the RSG Elotech production lines.
With major customers in automotive and industrial electronics sectors, RSG Elotech is adept at dealing with complex assembly challenges and demands for flawless product quality, immense flexibility, and fast turnaround time. While helping those customers deal with rapid technological change, electrification is revolutionising automotive design and Industrie 4.0 is driving advanced cyber-physical systems into factory automation. The company is also an accomplished manufacturer of advanced energy-saving technologies such as high-efficiency LED lighting.
Placing the 2.3 million surface-mount components that are handled on the nine highly automated production lines every day demands high speed, high accuracy, and high reliability. “Fortunately, we benefit from close links with Yamaha Robotics, a chosen partner whose dependable, inline mounters have brought outstanding speed and capabilities, with solid reliability, to our production activities,” comments Frank Lauterbach, Technical Manager.
Long-term connection
The connection with Yamaha Robotics is long established. In fact, there are currently six generations of their inline mounters currently serving the production lines at the factory in Bad Lobenstein. Early machines, from the YV and YV II series, continue to deliver high productivity and are now working alongside the latest YS and high-speed modular YSM machines. “We have 24 Yamaha mounters in action right now,” confirms Frank Lauterbach, “And we enjoy excellent support for each one through Yamaha’s European service team.”
Ralf Bierschenk, Chief Engineer at Yamaha Robotics comments, “We know that our customers need to maximise the return on each investment they make with us. That means supporting older machines to ensure years of dependable service, as well as helping unleash the maximum performance of the latest models.”
The current portfolio of the company’s mounters offers scalability from the one-beam/one-head YSM10R to the Z:TAR YSM40R, which combines four beams and four heads with advanced motion control and high-speed cameras giving the ability to place up to 200,000 cph. Additional innovations such as simplified Auto-Loading Feeders (ALF) and the non-stop feeder-carriage exchange system are easy to use and save time at changeovers, and the Auto Tray Sequencer (ATS) boosts productivity by enabling non-stop loading of components in trays.
The company’s Factory Tools 4.0 software suite helps owners to setup and program the machines and monitor performance. The latest version includes the Dashboard, which embeds world-class data-analytics knowhow from Tableau Software to show performance graphically and assist with continuous improvement. Live production analytics let users manage their lines in real-time, while historical analysis tools help easily visualise important metrics such as down time, setup time, pickup errors, and causes of stoppages.
Custom line for LED assembly
Both companies extended their co-operation even further by successfully engineering a special SMT line taking advantage of YS12/YS12F mounters to handle PCBs up to 1800mm long. Conceived primarily to assemble large arrays of surface-mount LEDs, this unique line strengthens the company’s position in energy-saving lighting and building-automation markets by enabling high productivity and fast turnaround times.
“Our engineering group worked with the team at RSG Elotech to create special solutions for board transport and indexing, which are integrated with the standard mounter platform,” explains Ralf Bierschenk. “In addition, we integrated Yamaha’s automated BIN-code management software to assist with programming. It simplifies the notoriously complex challenge of correcting for differences in LED brightness and helps the production team manage their inventory of LEDs efficiently.”
He concludes, “Delivering this project has further strengthened the collaboration between our two companies, which has become an enduring success.“
Yamaha Motor Europe N.V.
Hansemannstraße 12
41468 Neuss Germany
Tel.: +49 2131 20 13 520
E-Mail: info-ymeim@yamaha-motor.de
Website: www.yamaha-motor-im.eu
