Smart Manufacturing – PCB Industry is transforming, so are we!

In Smart Manufacturing data is the king – Identify and track PCB throughout the production process

Smart manufacturing 4.0 is the latest phenomenon in the manufacturing evolution. All types of manufacturing industries are undergoing this transition including the PCB industry. Printed Circuit board manufacturers are changing gears to meet the pace of smart manufacturing in other industries like electronics, aviation, automotive, and healthcare. There are several ways to achieve smart manufacturing, such as implement Artificial intelligence or deploy Industrial Internet of Things to optimize machine and human performance. Modifying existing production processes to provide increased traceability and visibility to the customer is the key step toward achieving Smart Manufacturing in PCB.  

Unlike any other industry, PCB industry is both driven by the customer needs as well as the technology used at the customer end. It is the customer’s design and requirement, the environment where the PCB prototype will work that defines the process, and manufacturing stages on the PCB manufacturers side. 

Additionally, PCB industry has its unique requirements when it comes to implementing smart manufacturing since PCBs are complex pieces that connect electronics to mechanics and therefore each layer in a board must be manufactured under the mandate of smart manufacturing to truly implement ‘smart manufacturing’.

Smart Manufacturing will improve traceability of a printed circuit board during production

Manufacturing Printed Circuit Boards is a highly precision work where large amounts of data is used both at designing and manufacturing stages to build circuit boards as per the project guidelines.

The greatest challenge faced by PCB manufacturers trying to implement the Smart Manufacturing techniques is to connect the data scattered across the departments and different stakeholders so that intelligent inferences can be drawn from it and applied to improve processes and enhance PCB reliability.

Manufacturing ‘Smart’ PCB

In PCB industry, job tracking is the critical aspect of the manufacturing process since the workflow is complicated and irreversible once initiated.  Therefore, one key aspect of implementing smart manufacturing is having a real-time project management software.  Good project management software will allow you to input, track, and order inventory easily without the need to manually log expenses in spreadsheets.

Once implemented, Smart manufacturing will enhance the efficiency and accuracy of PCB manufacturing with its time tracking and centralized information sharing between multiple teams from CAD engineers to the production floor to the quality analyst. CCI Canadian Circuits specializes in rapid prototyping and we are now rapidly transforming our manufacturing capabilities to conform to the Smart Manufacturing 4.0 requirements.

Contact us today to learn more about our technology.