Improve Materials Management with Intelligent JIT material flow for SMT lines

Overview

Conflicting priorities within an organization often leads to bad habits being formed which become hard to break; there is an easy justification for what is being done. “Breaking the habit” is often required however in order to realize a significant next-step of improvement. It is essential that as part of any successful improvement plan, the original needs from all of the different perspectives are addressed.

Such a case is the supply and management of materials in the SMT area. The key need of manufacturing is to keep the machines running “at all costs”. It is these “costs” that become the bad habits. Typically, inventories run higher and higher on the shop-floor and in the warehouse to ensure that there are always materials to hand when required. The cost of this in terms of investment, space, handling, quality, inventory inaccuracy, waste and lost flexibility are huge and often hidden, being regarded as a part of the necessary infrastructure.

Intelligent Just In Time (JIT) material flow is said to address these issues head-on, but how make this work in practice given the complexities of SMT manufacturing; how to address all of the conflicting needs form the different perspectives?

What You Will Learn

An understanding of different needs and perspectives of material management, to recognize the bad habits, learn how JIT can address these needs and see the real benefits that are just waiting to happen.

Who Should View

• Professional buyers
• Shop floor managers
• Production managers
• Materials managers
• Quality managers
• Process engineers