Smyczek
Smyczek grows with Assembléon Pick & Place machines
Smyczek GmbH & Co. KG, EMS-provider in Verl, produces high quality
PCB panels, components and appliances for industrial customers. Founded in
1985, the high-tech company has been using placement machines from
Assembléon for over 15 years. After an intensive evaluation phase, Smyczek
decided to once again invest in machines from the Dutch supplier of SMT
Pick & Place solutions, to ensure sustainable growth of the
company.
Smyczek GmbH & Co. KG, EMS-provider in Verl, produces high
quality PCB panels, components and appliances for industrial customers.
Founded in 1985, the high-tech company has been using placement machines
from Assembléon for over 15 years. After an intensive evaluation phase,
Smyczek decided to once again invest in machines from the Dutch supplier of
SMT Pick & Place solutions, to ensure sustainable growth of the
company.
Since 1997 the electronic manufacturer from Verl, with more than 200
employees, produces ISO-9001 certified modules and appliances in a 4500 m²
production hall. Their main production consists of products for the
automation sector, including Industry PC’s, automation-, control- and
communication-modules. A total of 85 percent is delivered directly to the
Beckhoff-consortium, to which the EMS-provider belongs since December 2009.
The remaining 15 percent consist of products for other industrial customers
situated in the same region as the electronics manufacturer.
Since 1995 Smyczek has an annual growth rate of around 15 percent. In order to make optimal use of the machines and the production space, the company has been working five and a half days per week with a three-shift system for the past six years. On seven assembly lines (one Mimot-line, one Siplace-X-line and five Assembléon-lines) a total number of 300 million components were mounted in 2008. The financial crisis in 2009 caused the output to drop to 220 million. However, from 2010 onwards things should be looking up again.
The project
Due to the different systems the production-line planning with over 1000
different modules was a permanent challenge for Beckhoff. Incompatibility
of the tape feeder systems and fundamentally different operating software,
turned out to be insurmountable obstacles for higher-level assembly
planning. Furthermore a market recovery and thus strong growth of the
Beckhoff-consortium initiated an extensive reorganization of the SMT
production line at Smyczek. By the end of 2012, the step-by-step
restructuring process should result in three identical lines from the same
manufacturer. The benchmark data of the requirements for the new highly
flexible production-solution can be summed up in seven points:
* Restructuring to three identical lines from one manufacturer by the end
of 2012
* Placement capacity per line and year: 150 million components with a
three-shift system
* Software solution for complex family setups, both static and
dynamic
* A minimum capacity of 400 tape feeder positions per line with 8 mm tape
feeders
* Availability of 88 mm tape feeders and ability to handle trays and
sticks
* FES carts for a quick changeover of tape feeders on both sides of the
line, APC
* Processing of odd-shaped-components up to 25 mm high
Encouraged by the Directors of the Beckhoff-consortium, Mr. Smyczek and Mr.
Schlegel, both Directors of Smyczek, began by exploring the possibility of
extending their existing Siplace-X-line to three machines and setting up
two consecutive identical lines by the end of 2012. However, the machine
manufacturer couldn’t guarantee the availability of the X-series by the end
of 2012, so this option was abandoned. In the final round, the system
proposed by the Assembléon engineers consisting of MC-machines (Modular
Compact) competed with the Siplace-SX configuration.
Mr. Roland Smyzcek, Mr. Michael Schlegel with Assembléon's Wolfgang
Steinbach
The to-do-list
To meet the benchmark data of the project, Assembléon
initiated the development of an 88mm tape feeder. Up until that point, this
type of tape feeder did not yet exist in the company’s portfolio. The
realization of this tape feeder enabled Assembléon to provide Smyczek with
their solution in good time.
In order to meet the software requirements, regarding complex family
setups, Smyczek and Assembléon partnered with Diplan GmbH, a very competent
company from Erlangen. For many years Diplan has been providing highly
professional software solutions for set-up strategies and job order
planning.
The proposition
The 6,2m long Assembléon Pick & Place line consists of
four modules from the MC-series, allowing a placement performance of 86.100
Bt/h in compliance with IPC-9850: One MC-24 module, a chip shooter,
followed by two MC-1 modules, universal chip shooter and IC-placer and
finally an MC-8 module with an APC and the ability of placing odd-shaped
and press-in-components. With space for a total of 429 tape feeders,
Smyczek’s requirements with regard to the tape feeder capacity for every
line are more than fulfilled. The spectrum of the components that can be
used, range from 01005-Chips (0,4 x 0,2 mm), to quadratic ICs (max. 54 x 54
mm) and odd-shaped-components (100 x 45 mm) with controlled press-in
forces.
The advantages
“Our decision in favor of the new Assembléon-concept with the MC-24X, is
based not only on the fact that it meets all our requirements, but
especially on the cost effectiveness of the solution”, reported Mr.
Smyczek. Besides flexibility and a quick changeover, the MC-series from
Assembléon offer a lot of other advantages. The complete cost effectiveness
– Total Cost of Ownership TCO – encompasses, apart from the initial
investment in hard- and software, the operational costs of the
machines.
Compared to its competitor Assembléon requested a lower investment sum from
its customer Smyczek. It was also important to be able to display
advantages in the consumption rate. This comparison was based on the
published datasheets of both manufacturers with regard to electricity and
compressed air consumption, as well as an annual lifetime of 6000 hours
(250 working days, of each 24 hours with a three-shift system). With regard
to the comparative value the MC-machines of the Assembléon-line only
consumed 41 percent of the electricity and as little as 30 percent of the
compressed air. With a calculated lifetime of five years, an amount of up
to € 60.000 per line can therefore be saved. For those who anticipate
increasing energy costs, this is another big cost advantage. These
calculations were based on the current cost rates of 2010, published under
www.energy.eu
and www.energystar.gov.
Owing to years of experience with machines from Siemens and Assembléon,
it was no big surprise for the Directors of Smyczek that the Assembléon
team also offers considerable cost advantages in the field of
maintenance and repair.
The realisation
After visiting reference customers, Smyczek decided in favor of the
Assembléon solution. With three instantly available demo-machines, a
temporary manufacturing solution was installed in July 2010. After
completing the line and exchanging the demo-machines with brand new ones,
the first of three Assembléon lines were set up at the end of September
2010. Even before the first line was fully installed, negotiations took
place with regard to a second and third line, both of which were bought
before the end of last year. Mr. Smyczek explained: “We have years of
positive experiences with Assembléon. We are using their machines since
1996 and they have proven to be very reliable, they require little
maintenance and are hardly susceptible to malfunctions”.
The economic recovery of 2010 enabled the EMS-service provider from Verl to
double its yearly output in comparison with 2009, bringing it up to 450
million components. In 2011 Smyczek plans to reach the 1 billion components
benchmark. During a joint party hosted at Smyczek in October 2010, the
Assembléon team was pleasantly surprised by the news that Smyczek wished to
buy two more lines in February 2011. “It’s not clear yet whether the
investment in Assembléon Pick & Place lines has come to an end with the
buying of the February machines,” Mr. Schlegel commented on the current
situation at Smyczek. With a wink he added “The end of the economic
recovery is not yet in sight!”
