SIMATIC IT for Electronics

Summary

Manufacturers must bring cost-effective products to market faster than ever while meeting a variety of challenges including:

• introduction of a large number of new products in record time
• manufacturing a growing mix of complex products
• meeting customer and regulatory demands like traceability and lead free manufacturing
• introducing new technologies, like components, software, equipment or processes

Beyond these day-to-day manufacturing challenges, global manufacturers face the challenge of:

• acquiring new facilities
• selecting the right equipment
• balancing the workload between factories
• managing inventory and quality on a global scale
• managing the outsourcing business process

SIMATIC IT for Electronics manufacturing addresses these critical issues, by providing the most commonly used manufacturing process management solution for designing, optimizing, managing and embedding the New Product Introduction (NPI) process, seamlessly combining and integrating it with the production execution on the shop floor and the outsourcing business process at the single plant, corporation or extended enterprise levels.

Benefits

• Traceability: the possibility to track all work operations, assembled components and quality measures related to produced items
• Interlocking: checking that everything is correct before performing work operations, in order to minimize scrap and waste
• Key Performance Indicator (KPI) calculation and reporting
• Interfacing with ERP systems to receive master data and production orders
• Interfacing directly with shop floor devices
• Managing defects
• Monitoring the real-time performance of production equipment

Features

ERP Interoperability

Enables continuous synchronization of Master Data, real-time download of production orders and prompt feedback of performance.
Data is acquired from:

• Business level (material master data, BoM, planned orders, routings, incoming materials...)

• Shop floor level (status, events, quality measures...)

Messaging from and to the ERP system supports standard B2MML messages and most common standard formats.

KPI management and Reporting

Provides quantitative visibility and transparency into manufacturing operations and business processes. When it comes to manufacturing profitability, availability of data directly from the plant floor is mandatory. All reports and analysis screens are based on the SIMATIC IT Intelligence Suite components.
The real benefit is the definition of meaningful and actionable KPIs: Quality trend charts, First Pass Yield, Failure report, Rework statistics, OEE statistics, SPC Trends…

Assembly and Analysis Client with dedicated features to PCB (Box Build and PCB Client)

It allows the operator to track each serial number produced and each possible defect against a Failure Catalogue:

• Analyze item tests
• Analyze previous reports
• Insert Rework steps for replacing defective parts.
• Deliver Traceability messages

An integrated GUI shows the product currently processed at the workstation for visual inspection.
This system enables the following features:

• Defect position selection
• Traceability messages delivery

When a defect is identified, it is very important to quickly manage the rework and the repair in order to have the piece back in production, thus reducing waste and scraps as much as possible.

Standard Interface with Shop Floor Devices

It is a set of basic communication interfaces between SIMATIC IT and the production environment.

Interlocking of processes and materials

Ensures that a part’s production process follows the defined product routing. Interlocking prevents the execution of a costly process step when the prerequisites are not satisfied.

Online Monitoring

The machine monitor is an up-to-the-minute production status cockpit chart displaying produced items, performance and quality figures for the current work shift. It is designed to be displayed on large screens hanging above the production lines.
As soon as some parameter falls below a configurable threshold, visual indication is given by means of a RAG (red-ambergreen) lamp image.

Traceability of process steps, components and measurements

Genealogy is the source of information for decision support, product recalls and production reporting.
Quality data is combined with the execution history, the personnel, equipment and raw materials used, and maintained in an efficient data store.
This entire set of information can be retrieved manually, or automatically.