Z-AXIS has improved the way that we store and retrieve SMT parts.
Recently, we installed four automated storage towers from Mycronic, the same company that makes our pick-and-place machines. The towers are 4 to 6 feet in diameter and almost 9 feet tall. The smaller towers hold 950 reels of parts.
Except for very large components, these towers now store 95% of our SMT parts. Before, we kept reels of components on shelves in our storeroom and spent time hunting for parts and determining which reels to use. Now, we store reels in our towers, which track part locations and dispense what we need.
New reels that leave our receiving area are loaded directly into one of the four towers. It doesn’t matter which one as long as there’s room. Storage is as simple as putting a reel in the terminal and pressing a button. An integrated barcode scanner reads the reel information and sends it to the server.
When it’s time for production, we use our planning software to enter the number of boards to make. We also indicate whether the boards are one-sided or two-sided. That’s important because a double-sided board may need a family kit. This saves us from having to set up the board twice with any common parts.
We then tell our planning software which line we’ll run the job on. The software decides where to put each part on the two machines based on tooling and speed. It also tells us how long each machine will run and the number of parts it will place per hour. We then export our production plan to the towers.
Our software-enabled towers will dispense parts in the quantities we need, and without our having to look for parts and choose between reels. A computerized database tracks everything for us.
Parts retrieval takes the push of a few buttons, and we can load up to 16 reels in the basket of a cart that’s quickly moved to production. Software tells us which part to put in which magazine on which machine, and a unique ID code ensures that the right component is always provided to the pick-and-place machine.
When production is complete, we return high-value reels with sufficient part quantities to the towers. When we need the same part again, we’ll know exactly how many we have, where they’re located, and if we can use full or partial reels for the job.
By automating part storage and retrieval, Z-AXIS has improved our inventory management and production efficiency. That’s important when you need to keep track of 8 million parts at one of the largest users of Mycronic equipment.