Electronics printing specialist company Ekra of Germany will continue to expand its sales and service team in Europe. With a growth rate of more than 30 % in the fiscal year 2007, the European market was doing very well, as sales manager Michael Ochs declares. “With the current products and the innovations to come, we are also expecting growth in the double digit range for 2008.” Since phoenix from the ashes, Ekra has come under the umbrella of Germany-based automation and production-machine experts Asys, the situation is considerably picking-up.
It is the main task of the newly appointed sales manager Michael Ochs (36) to continuously expand the sales activities in Europe, Israel and South Africa. The engineer coordinates and supports Ekra’s sales in Europe with all subsidiaries and representatives in Europe from the headquarters in Boennigheim, south of Germany. As he underlines, “…furthermore, together with the Asys Group to which Ekra has belonged since 2005, we are able to offer a broad portfolio of solutions in handling, depaneling and laser marking to our SMT customers. Hardly any other equipment manufacturer can support its patrons in this industry with such a comprehensive product range”. Besides the sales organization, our service and support will also be continuously intensified in Europe, assuring fast and effective customer cooperation, with spare part bases being established throughout our European subsidiaries.”
Solid and innovative virtues of their own
However, these expectations are not just words. The long-established and proven system supplier, a very solid, expert middle-sized German company, can rely upon a large installed base of efficient solutions. New machines and product innovations have also been introduced recently – and even more are probably to follow over time. Besides the well-known in-line systems X 4 and X 6, the new X 3 in-line printer has in the meantime topped their expectations in sales. Ekra printing equipment, regarded as cost-efficient and reliable, features now in the X 3 machine significantly enhanced operator software. Users are now automatically guided through the set-up process, avoiding errors and mistakes during a product changeover. Therefore, the set-up is neither time-consuming nor erroneous.
As such, the X 3 printing machine is an appropriate solution for the high-mix environment with many different boards and a smaller number of the single lots or batches to be assembled. Furthermore, with the new option 2 D post print inspection, Ekra’s customers now also have a fast and reliable inspection tool available on the X 3 machine. An automated stencil-cleaning unit is included in the machine as well.
With its innovative R&D department, the company is also known as a technology partner supplying outstanding or special solutions to its clients. Looking at the printing process, it had become more and more difficult to deliver the exact amount of solder paste due to the broad mix of components. Particularly, component terminations or pads which require a large solder paste volume are often not sufficiently completed with solder paste.
Also, large and heavy components which easily could rotate on the board during the assembly process should be fixed somehow. In order to meet these process challenges, Ekra has developed the iPAG (the integrated Paste and Glue Dispenser) allowing users to place additional paste or adhesive depots, volumes or dots immediately after the normal solder paste printing process anywhere on the PCB.
The iPAG Dispenser is mounted directly on the camera gantry and thus does not require any individual axes system to provide its precise movements. Any place of the PCB can be accessed with the iPAG for the various dispensing jobs. For each dispensing dot, all significant parameters can be programmed individually, allowing the customers to have always the right volume and size of each single dot. Using a standard diameter 0.4 mm adhesive nozzle, glue dispensing times usually reach from 0.65 to 1.4 seconds per dot. With the iPAG, the company claims to offer now another innovative solution for the design of electronics board assembly as well as for its process optimizations. Together with each iPAG, a set of distance units and dispensing nozzles are supplied, making the option ready for any task.
Michael Ochs in resuming the tasks of his new position declares, “Through our strong local partners, we have an excellent access to the different markets in Europe. The individual markets have very different demands. These requirements reach from uncomplicated manual printers, via semiautomatic machines to fully automatic in-line equipment. Even for high speed printing systems, flexible dual-lane solutions, customized special purpose machines or entire hybrid/thickfilm production lines, Ekra is the ideal partner. Our wide-ranging product portfolio allows us to always offer a unique customized solution for different user or application requirements”.
In order to bring up the new products and machine options to the industry, the company will show its presence on all important show grounds this year in Europe. Take for example Moscow/Russia, Milano/Italy, Nuremberg/Germany, London/England, Paris/France and Madrid/Spain. As we can see from these wide-reaching activities the new European sales manger and the team will not have to complain about boredom. (Gerhard B. Wolski)
EPP Europe 406
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