EMS@C-LEVEL
As Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company and SCOOP writer, Philip Stoten, continues to talk to EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) executives he learns more about their individual and collective experiences and their expectations for their own businesses and for the entire electronic manufacturing industry.
EMS@C-LEVEL
Electronica 24: Omron's Innovations in Electronic Inspection Technologies
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Discover how inspection technologies are reshaping the future of manufacturing with insights from Grischa Wasmus of Omron. Promising a transformation in quality control, Grischa discusses Omron’s innovations, like their latest SPI system and the 3D SN80 AOI system, and explains the significance of the high-resolution X-ray solutions, VT-X750, X850, and X950, for PCB and semiconductor industries. Join us as we uncover the impact of inline X-ray machines on high-speed production lines and the emerging trend of integrating cross-discipline data to yield actionable insights.
In a conversation that bridges industries, Grischa and I delve into how Omron's Q-App Suite software connects various machines to enhance production efficiency. We explore the promising partnerships with companies like Fuji and Panasonic, which are creating real-time feedback loops for instant production line adjustments.
This episode offers a compelling look into the evolving landscape of electronic inspection and the quest for a more integrated, data-driven approach to manufacturing.
EMS@C-Level at electronica 2024 was hosted by IPC (https://www.ipc.org/)
EMS@C-Level is hosted by global inspection leaders Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Global Electronics Association (https://www.electronics.org)
You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.
Hello, I'm Philip Stoughton. I'm at Electronica 2024. I'm on the IPC booth and I'm joined by Brisha Vazmus from Omron. Thanks for joining me. I know you're co-exhibiting with your distributor here this week. Start by giving me kind of an overview of what's new with OMROM. What's the kind of latest trends and the latest developments?
Speaker 2Yeah for sure. So good morning, philip as well. So I'm pleased to be here. So thank you for the invitation. Yeah, you know, we are co-exhibitors this week in ATE, care Booth and A3. We are presenting our newest SPI system, which we are developing with CKD as a partner, and our SN80, the newest AOI system that we have, the 3D version. Furthermore, we are promoting for new X-ray solutions. So we have the standard X-ray solutions with CT functionality for PCBs especially, especially the VT-X750. And near this year we have the X850 as well now in the rollout.
Speaker 2X850 is with a higher voltage tube for much bigger products, for ADAS or in general something where it does what you can have in immobilities or something like that, and also for the X950 for the semiconductor business. So with really a high resolution with sound to 0.2 microns, where we can inspect also the batches from the bondings and so on.
Speaker 1Yeah, and that's for batch X-ray or that's inline x-ray.
Speaker 2It's inline x-ray, so we are just using inline machines, we don't have offline. So when you like to have it offline, you need to add some loading and unloading components and then you can do it as well.
Speaker 1But in general it's inline and it's really for high speed and such yeah, running at the tact of the line and when you look at inspection with the different disciplines, with SPI, with AOI, with X-ray, I guess people are looking to homogenize that data, to bring that data together to actually provide insight back to root causes for problems. How important is that and what's the kind of software provision to do that?
Speaker 2It's becoming more and more important. For sure, it's much important to see what can I do with my data, what can I do, not just inspect and finding failures. So what can I do with this information? And this is quite important to connect all the other solutions we have on the line. So this means we are using the Q-App Suite, so we have different Q-App softwares called Quality App.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And using the software for connecting different machines, supporting operators but also management tasks, Depends what you like to have, how to programming, what I need to program and so on and so on. And you can have an analysis also from the nozzle, from the pick and place machine when is the? Failure really located and what is the nozzle with the most failure topics we could find for submission?
Speaker 1Okay, so you're actually taking data from the placement machines as well, and does that matter which placement provider it is?
Speaker 2In general, not for sure. We are not not having everything implemented yet. So we are partners with Fuji, for instance and. Panasonic are implemented, so and this is what we also going to promote more active also with some partners.
Speaker 1We have really to get the benefit for the customers and bring all the information together and creating a direct feedback loop so you can actually make adjustments exactly.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah we'll say it also some years ago already, so now it's. We've said it some years ago already, so now it's stuck in. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1And you mentioned that the X-rays use that high definition for Semicon. Are you seeing much connection between the EMS, PCB and the Semicon industry? Are you seeing a kind of blurring of the lines between them a little bit?
Speaker 2From my point. I would love to have it, it's not finally adapted in all companies.
Speaker 2Unfortunately, mostly you have different departments and they're not especially in beer companies not talking with each other so directly. But I'm absolutely convinced that it will be connected in the future, because you need to find the complete chain of value-added solutions and this means you need to find a start at the very beginning up to the back-end processes, and you have to connect all information from the factory, from the shop floor doesn't matter if it's from semi-con or it's just assembly process.
Speaker 1Absolutely a lot of data, a lot of data to process, and we're seeing a lot of. It doesn't matter if it's from a semi-con or it's just an assembly process. Yeah, absolutely A lot of data, a lot of data to process, and we're seeing a lot of conversations around digital transformation about the use of AI. Are you using AI to manage that data in some cases, or is that something that's a development process?
Speaker 2We're using it at the moment quite successfully for a programming process. So we can make automatic programming and from a rare board, from customer board, we can present it and within three, four minutes we have a complete summer program program ready, yeah it's really huge saving and really comfortable, because most of the things, what you have to do is finding the right settings for everything, and this is automatically done from the AI and therefore, yeah, it's a big, big hub also for EMS, especially because they have high mix.
Speaker 1Yeah, a lot of changeover, yeah.
Speaker 2Exactly, and then you have to adjust all the programs again and with. Ai. It's much easier and more fast.
Speaker 1Yeah, and do you think you'll see AI find its way into other parts of the manufacturing process? You know, when you look at what you're taking from the line in terms of data from your own machines, but also data from external machines like placement, there's a lot of data there to process and trying to find patterns and trying to find solutions that perhaps help with planning as well as root cause quality control Totally.
Speaker 2Also with the portfolio from Roman we have in our automation business. We have also mobile robots and co-bots and so on PLCs. The target is really to connect all these different machines inspection machines, electrical testers, aois, pmps all together we can easily send an AMR to bring some boards for more deeper analysis in an electrical Tesla.
Speaker 2But maybe it's not needed for every product anymore, but just on demand, or if there's maybe a limit it could be yes or no and for this, where really the customer needs to have the complete 100 percent inspection or test results, we can send it to the tester and bring it back to the line.
Speaker 1If it's not an error, I'll bring it to another place, yeah, where a corrective action can be taken. Yeah, I think it's fascinating when I look at the application of AI and I look at the. We've done a lot of work to get all that data connected in the industry and I think maybe using AI to manage that data and convert it to insight and help us make better decisions is what might take us to that final point of industry 4.0 that we've been talking about 10 years, and not really perhaps not achieving as much as we expected, because the ingredient technology is like, like you know, connectivity standards just weren't there.
Speaker 2Yeah, I totally agree, and I just was laughing a bit because 10 years ago we see i4.0, it was really a bad one. You asked 10 people and got 11 answers what it is, and maybe we are not at the same stage nowadays, but it's not so far away from that yeah, and I really hope that this AI trend will not be something like that. Yeah, not a hype, because there's really a value behind and when we do it on the right way, it doesn't matter how it's named.
Speaker 1Yeah, you just need functionality and see support for operators yeah, to improve our performance yeah and absolutely, and I think the key to success for application of AI is actually understanding AI, but really understanding process and inspection in your case, having that deep domain knowledge and combining it with the broad AI skills is where you can deliver value to your customer.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly that is the most well our target behind everything. Yeah, absolutely Our driven point.
Speaker 1Thank you for stopping by Pleasure to chat and have a great day today. I look forward to chatting with you. It was a pleasure on my side. Thanks, a lot.
Speaker 2Thank you, have a good day. See you next time.