Smaller, smarter, faster

A new era of automation

Founded in 1978, mikrolab is based in the German industrial heartland, a region renowned for some of the world’s most advanced manufacturing solutions for medical, automotive and industrial automation technologies. In recent decades, the company has specialized in the development of firmware and hardware for embedded digital systems, as well as prototyping, testing and series production of electronics assemblies and complete devices. Today some eighty percent of production is dedicated to sophisticated OEM products including navigation systems for maritime vessels, portable measuring and control devices, safety-relevant medical electronics and control systems for various industrial applications.

For nearly twenty years, the company’s two SMT lines have served them well. But as customer needs evolved, a new production line was needed. In particular, mikrolab aims to significantly expand its share in the fast-paced EMS market, where an ability to handle far smaller and more diverse components, flexible changeovers and a wider range of batch sizes is an absolute necessity. “Our customers are trying to assert themselves in the market by establishing entire product families,” says Andreas Lebrecht, Production Manager, mikrolab. “This leads to smaller quantities and more assembly variants.”

A full-line Mycronic solution – consisting of two MY700 Jet Printers and three MY300 pick-and-place machines – was chosen to replace the previous two SMT lines with the aim of ensuring the best combination of speed, flexibility and quality. MYCenter Material Handling, MYCenter Proactive Replenishment Monitor and MYCenter Analysis were also included to provide intuitive interaction with the data most crucial to maintaining high productivity throughout the assembly process.

Boosting flexibility

One of the key motivations for the new investment was the need to handle far smaller components, down to dimensions of 150μ x 300μ, as well as larger board formats. “By replacing our four pick-and-place machines with three MY300s, we now have a much wider range of both board sizes and component types,” explains Andreas. “They can be as small as 01005 or 03015 chips, or as large as 140 x 73 x 22 mm. Now we’re able to print, assemble and solder PCBs as large as 640 x 510 mm.”

The addition of two MY700 Jet Printers has added further productivity gains. By eliminating the need for stencils, the solution enables rapid changes to solder paste application while maintaining speeds up to two million dots per hour, thus ensuring continuous supply to the pick-and-place machines. “The costs and procurement time of the stencils are completely eliminated,” says Andreas. “Setup is very fast, and thanks to the four ejectors, we can now apply adhesive dots and solder paste in one production run, even if there are already components on the side to be printed. We’ve removed all the limits we faced with stencil printing.”

Streamlining changeovers

Of course, a wider variety of products also means more changeovers, which is exactly the challenge the Agilis feeder system, e-label systems and material handling software were designed to address. “The Mycronic set-up concept is significantly more cost-effective than the alternatives,” says Andreas. “The Agilis feeders are a huge advantage when you take into account our component diversity and batch sizes, and this has a direct impact on the available machine running time and production costs.”

With the new system in place, changeover times have been dramatically reduced, and setup errors have been virtually eliminated. The result is consistently high line utilization and daily placement output despite a growing number of changeovers, says Andreas. “We’re not impressed by a line’s theoretical placement performance, according to IPC. The real performance over the course of a day always depends on the range of components on the assembly, the distribution of components among the machines, the order’s batch size and the eventual downtime due to tooling, sampling or missing feeders.”