Assembly Manufacturing Calendar Planning

Planning of work always comes up with good results. Orders that are in reserve should represent well with planning. The calendar is evidently the best option to represent all the work systematically. So we come up with a solution to plan manufacturing orders by their shipment date in an organized caledear view.
We can see all the orders with shipment dates and past & future orders with status. All the orders are uniquely identified with the MO (i.e. Manufacturing Order) number and added with priority number in descending order means the largest number shows high priority. For example order number MO8180 (95). It helps to manage the multiple orders. This is the basic idea for Assembly Manufacturing Calendar planning.

We can see in the above example that Order number MO8180 (95) in this MO8180 unique manufacturing order number and (95) is the priority number of that particular order. It indicates that order has a high priority which helps to work in a standardized manner.

This module will load all the manufacturing orders by their shipment dates in a calendar format as alike month, week and day mode. As the user can go forward in month or backward in a month and likewise with week and day mode also.
Manufacturing is an important and basic step for the production of the order. Every order has its steps for the production process. All steps are important and necessary for a particular order’s production. Orders cannot go for the next phase until every step should be complete.
We manifest calendar with our manufacturing orders’ shipment date wise it provides the overall condition of orders with different specification. All features are user-friendly. Provide better visualization and the user gets the idea about the order status.

The main purpose of this module is to identify the manufacturing orders with their priorities. The order with no priority number indicates that it is not yet came into planning. Users will get an idea of their order status by colors. The calendar lists the orders with the shipment date and user can view in monthly, weekly and daily mode with their current status. All the orders have some color indications with different categories. Colors’ indication is very useful and user-friendly. It strikes the user’s mind to envision the data speedy and well.

In this Assembly manufacturing calendar there is three colors sign available as Orange, Green and Blue.

• Orange colour indicates that the manufacturing order’s pre-production activity is pending. Now why the order is pending we can figure out this by opening the dialog box of detail order specification. Till the order need some specifications as the time it fulfills then it will go in the ready to production state otherwise it remains in the same state.
• Green colour indicates that manufacturing orders are in Ready for Production state. This means all the pre-production activities are done but order so far not move in the production state then it remains in ready to production state. Now we can move the orders in the production phase.
• Blue Colour designate as manufacturing orders are in the production phase. All the order’s pre-production activities are done now the order is in the production phase and soon complete the manufacturing of orders.

This interface comes up with the feature to move the orders from one day to another day correspondingly to week and month by doing drag & drop of any particular order.

As order dragged & dropped then it reflects directly to the shipment date. Priorities of orders will recalculate according to date of shipment and it re-prioritizes.

As we know when orders are shown in orange colors means some pre-production activities are pending. You can click on a particular order then the dialog box will open.

In the dialog, box user can go through that which type of pre-production activities is pending. For instance sourcing activity or preparation activity. The sourcing segment includes component sourcing and raw material sourcing.

• Component sourcing specifies that in Assembly PCB the components are missing. Till the components are missing the order will not go into ready to production state. However order has high priority.
• Raw material sourcing specifies that there may be some raw materials are missing. To complete the pre-production state it is compulsory to provide the raw material with their standardized manners.
• The preparation module or engineering activities are also significant. It should be complete in such a manner.

This is the idea for Assembly manufacturing calendar panning to visualize order status. Users get the idea from this module that Order has high priority still the job cannot be started yet. The dialog box gives the detail for order status with its priority. Quick actions will take to resolve it soon for orders.

How to create Bill of Materials for Electronics Assembly

A Bill of Materials (BOM) is a detailed list of components for the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) assembly and sub-assemblies. The electronics assembly service provider depends on BOM for sourcing the components to mount on the PCB.

A clear and complete BOM immensely helps assembler not only in sourcing but also at the time of manufacturing. A well-prepared BOM avoids the need for back-and-forth communication with the assembler to clarify doubts. A BOM is prepared in the normal spreadsheet program. Many PCB design or schematic software also has the feature to export BOM.

A BOM must contain minimum following information:

1. Manufacturer Part Number (MPN): MPN is the most crucial piece of information in BOM. MPN is a unique number that the manufacturer assigns to an electronic component. Every distributor of components identifies them. By providing MPN you can generally take away all the confusion related to the part selection.

2. Description: It is very useful to include a description of the part. It generally consists of the technical specification of the part such as voltage, resistance, capacitance, etc. In case you have not included MPN in your BOM then description becomes the most important information to find out the required part.

3. Quantity: Number of each part you require for a single board. This is a piece of critical information for assembly to determine how many total components he would need to purchase. Distributors give a discount on higher quantities so this information must be up-to-date.

4. Reference Designator: It is a unique alphanumeric sign given for each part. Reference Designators generally correspond with legends printed on PCB. For example, resistors are generally named as R1, R2, R3, etc and Capacitors C1, C2, C3, etc. This information is very useful while manufacturing. The number of reference designators must match the quantity.

5. Placement: Indicates on which side of the board components is placed. You can also mention “Not placed” if the component is not required to place on the board by the assembler. Based on this information assembler determines the complexity and often cost of assembly.

6. Comments/Notes: Normally this is not required but it can be very useful in case a component is difficult to find and replacement component is needed. You can also put useful manufacturing-related information.

An example of a general Bill of Material is as shown below.

New Workcenter Dashboard in Manufacturing

The purpose of the Workcenter dashboard in the manufacturing module of Sparrow ERP is to enable shop floor operators to see new and upcoming jobs. It allows them to focus on activity only related to their department but still provides enough information.

The new Workcenter Dashboard gives you an instant overview of jobs running in each workcenter. It gives an instant glance to job statistics of each department like a number of running jobs, ready to start jobs as well as paused or partially finished jobs.
The Workcenter Dashboard has click-through functionality. On clicking particular statistical count, the user can see a detailed list view of jobs running in that department. All jobs are listed according to the priority assigned to them by the system. Each priority number is color-coded. The highest priority jobs are coded with hard colors like red/orange and lowest priority jobs are coded with soft colors like light blue/green. Priority is initially assigned automatically based on an algorithm taking into account the time remaining for shipping the job. However, the priority can be changed manually by the operator.

On clicking icon in the operator column, the user can assign/unassign a job to himself or any other operator. In the comment column; if the user wants to make a new comment, he can click on the same icon of the comment column and add the comment. If the comment icon is red that means there is already existing comment and the user can read it. On clicking on the start button operation dialog-box will open.

On the operation dialog box, before starting the operation user can select resources that are going to be used in the process (this selection influences the production cost). Users can also add “Unplanned Operation” if any extra activity is to be performed during the process. The operation can be Paused and resumed. And, finally before finishing the operation user can change the finished quantity. The change in finished quantity can either trigger scrap or allows you to move partially finished quantity to the next stage.

What is traceability from Electronics Manufacturing stand point?

Traceability for an Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) company is very essential not only for internal tracking and data analysis but also for customer relationships. Sparrow ERP generates serial and lot numbers based on the type and packaging of the component. The same is done for a finished board at the end of the assembly process. The serialization of each item that comes into Inventory via procurement or production helps the system to trace its life cycle during storage and production. Here are some of the areas where traceability features of Sparrow ERP help EMS companies.

Minimize the size of product recall

Product recalls can be costly, especially when you are dealing in large quantities. Without effective traceability and serialization, it is possible that you have to recall the entire shipment for inspection and repair. However, with an effective serialization backed by traceability and only a small portion of the entire shipment is possible to recall which saves a huge amount of time and cost.

Dispute resolution with organized data

The dispute can arise due to multiple reasons; It can happen over the production process or components used. In each scenario if you have traceability data then it helps to solve a dispute with the customer and hugely impacts the relationship with a customer in a positive manner.

Manage compliance

To comply with legal requirements like lead-free production, it is very essential to collect and retain production activity data.

Component usage & tracking

An effective traceability system such as in Sparrow ERP tracks movement of every component like, how it was purchased, stored and used with internal document numbers like Purchase orders and Manufacturing orders. It also links the individual components on finished boards. This gives an incredible amount of data for traceability.

Tracking SMD & SMT placement

Bill of Material (BoM) contains useful information about the type of component. By tracking each component we can essentially track each SMT and SMT placement. Further, by collecting information like which equipment is used under what circumstances it enhances the usability of data.

Track repair & rework

Sparrow ERP tracks each operation in Manufacturing order while it was in Rework or Repair state. Operator name, equipment used, components consumed (with their serial or lot number) is recorded. This data is linked with the finished board and easily retrieved via a traceability report.

Estimating Direct Production Cost of PCB Assembly Job

Estimating the direct production cost of the PCB Assembly job in Sparrow ERP is accomplished by setting up some key parameters and attributes one time. Currently, The Sparrow ERP considers the following items in calculating direction cost calculations.

1.  Component costs (based on Bill of Material).
2. Assembly Cost (based on cost added in Sales order).
3. Labor cost (based on parameters set in the workcenter).
4. Equipment cost (based on parameters set in the workcenter).

Direct costs are again of two types in the system; Pre-production cost and Post-production cost. Pre-production cost is derived from the estimation of the usage of material and resources. Post-production cost is calculated based on the actual usage of components and resources.

Component Costs:

The sourcing activity needs to be finished before production starts and as a result we have total cost of components. The Sparrow ERP’s Purchase plan module allows users to automatically fetch prices and stock availability of components from Bill of Material.

Assembly Cost:

Cost of assembly is either entered manually by operator or using Sparrow ERP’s in-built assembly cost calculator.

Labor Cost:

You can define the hourly rate of operation in Sparrow ERP’s workcenter. Workcenter is a virtual/physical place where actual work is done. To carry out the work resources are added to the workcenter. Each work center resource can carry cost attributes. For example, in the Manual Soldering workcenter main resource is the operator; an hourly cost of an operator can be set in this case.

Equipment cost:

Same as Labor cost, equipment to carry out work is added in Workcenter. Each equipment carries the cost of usage. The cost of usage per hour can be added per equipment.

All these parameters when set correctly, can result in a pretty accurate calculation of direct cost of the PCB Assembly. When production job starts, the system knows which workcenter is being used. The system also allows flexibility to choose a particular resource at the start of the operation. At the end of all operations, we have a complete picture of how many resources are used for how long and that gives us the capability to calculate direct production cost.

Estimating Production Time of PCB Assembly Job

Predicting the accurate time of your assembly job is an extremely important part production planning process. By using Sparrow ERP‘s resource managers like Operations and Workcenter every piece of equipment in your factory used in the assembly process is assigned time attributes. These time attribute helps in predicating the total time of production.

In Operation Master, the time attribute of operation and sub-operations can be defined. Routing which is made of multiple operations is assigned to Manufacturing order. As soon as that is done, we can estimate total time of the assembly process. This gives a great advantage in production planning since you know already how much time each pending job is going to take. It helps in assigning resources and man-power. It also helps in planning the maintenance activities.

A fine example of how time attribute in operation master cane be used used is a step in Assembly called Feeder preparation.

As you can see to carry out Feeder Preparation, two steps are required. First, feeder preparation itself and second, Marking check. The estimated time to do these tasks is defined and the occurrence value is “Per Bill of Material”. Occurrence indicates how frequently this operation will be performed in the process.

Setting the correct “Occurrence” value is as important as setting the correct estimated time. For example Feeder preparation mostly happens only once in the assembly process, but Inspection happens per board. As you can see in the picture below, there is multiple types of “Occurrences”.

An operation could be required to do Per PCB, Panel, BOM, CPL (SMT/TOP), CPL (SMD/BOT), CPL (BGA/TOP), CPL (BGA/BOT), CPL (QFN/TOP), CPL (QFN/BOM), CPL (FINEPITCH/BOT), CPL (FINEPITCH/TOP), CPL (MECHANICAL/BOT), CPL (MECHANICAL/TOP) etc…

Setting up these parameters is not a one time process, initial setup may give you some time unrealistic estimate due to wrong input. It will require multiple tuning efforts to set this correctly, but once it is correctly done it would give the invaluable result that can transform production planning.

The following image gives you a glimpse of the result of setting up correct time attributes.