Expansion meets the customers’ needs
10 November 2008
Tim Fryer went to visit Nemco primarily to see its latest acquisitions – a clutch of Samsung’s placement machines – but found that the company was investing in several other areas as well.
Nemco’s philosophy, according to Sales and Marketing Manger Kevin Scott, is: "To do as much as we can for our customers. We are willing to look at any extra capabilities that our clients need, which is why we have invested so much recently in box build and cable assembly, for example. It is this flexibility and range of facilities that makes us different from other EMS companies."
The two particular capabilities Scott mentions are very much in evidence at Nemco’s Stevenage site as a recent re-organisation, which has included ‘bringing in’ a satellite plant from Cambridge, has resulted in both cable assembly and box build (full product assembly) having their own buildings. The largest of the company’s three adjacent units is now home to board assembly and test as well as all engineering and corporate departments.
The company has never been scared to diversify. Indeed when Managing Director David Pearce founded the company back in 1986 it was as a test solutions design company. It was while building boards for a test equipment customer during the early 1990s that contract manufacturing began to take off and Pearce started to take on more of this work until it became the company’s core activity.
Scott commented: "Dave has been the backbone of the company and is still involved, so an understanding of test solutions and the ability to provide and design these in to our clients products has always been a key capability. It is something that is very important for our customers in the UK market - it is one of a number of added value capabilities that our customers desire and we are happy to provide."
The importance of having a wide range of capabilities was emphasised by Operations Director, Bob Parker: "We offer the full turnkey package to our clients. The only main process we do not undertake is the fabrication of the PCB. We have engineers using CAD to undertake board layout and design work for us, including product design. There is a growing trend among our customers to ask us for a complete product service – which we also see as the way forward for our core business. We undertake everything from the design, layout, interface cables and PCB assemblies right through to a fully tested and boxed product, before shipping to either our client or direct to the end customer."
The re-organisation of the company has been designed to maximise the benefits in terms of productivity. Previously, certain contracts, particularly those from the Cambridge site, were built in the one area. Now, having relocated cable assemblies under one roof, together with the general assembly, the whole flow of the manufacturing process is more easily managed throughout the organisation and productivity can be optimised.
This philosophy is also evident in the main building, which houses the main electronics assembly operation. Due to the nature of building up the business around certain clients and projects, the factory floor has been a fairly disparate group of cells, and the flow of work from one stage to the next was not always the most efficient. The current reorganisation, which was still being finalised when I visited, has a more logical pass through from SMT to AOI, hand assembly, flow solder and test.
Boards can then be moved through to the general assembly facility for final assembly together with the cable and other sub assemblies. Additional processes like conformal coating or functional test then also can take place in this same area.
Although there have been recent equipment investments made in the newer buildings, particularly in cable preparation equipment from Turners Electronics and a Cirrus cable harness tester, it is in the main building that the bigger investments have been made.
Pride of place goes to the three new Samsung placement machines that have now bedded into the existing SMT lines. Nemco has currently four lines consisting of three CP45 NEO’s, three CP45 FV, CP40ECV, QSA30V .Two of these CP45FV NEO’s are in one, new, line, while the other one replaced an aging Quad machine (in case you were wondering about continuity, the old Quad machines were made by Samsung). Superficially the choice of Samsung equipment seems an obvious one. "One of the reasons we went with Samsung," said Parker, "is that we have had a long-standing relationship with GNKT [Samsung’s UK distributor]. Having worked with them for many years we knew that we would get the level of support that we needed when we needed it, although we knew that the machines were sufficiently reliable that we have rarely needed to use that support."
So, was this the only reason for continuing with the same supplier? Not at all continued Parker: “We reviewed all the aspects of the machines, placement capabilities, feeder capacity build quality, reliability, cost per placement, user interface, footprint size, etc. Samsung competed well in all aspects but it was the user interface that made the difference. Technicians and operators found it user friendly, giving them the capability to take in an NPI job, program, load and process within the same day. The other machine supplier [the final choice came down to two being trialled on site] may have had a slight edge in some aspects but the user interface was substantially less user friendly. Obviously keeping with the same kit also meant we could use the line balancing software supplied to cover all our SMT machinery.”
The machines selected were the CP45FV NEO – the most recent iteration of the Samsung platform that offers a placement rate of 14,900cph (IPC 9850) and features an advanced full flying vision system. The on-the-fly vision system is particularly important when trying to keep speeds up when placing BGAs and for the same reason one of the two placement machines in each of the lines is ear-marked as a finepitch placer and is fitted with an automatic waffle tray handler accordingly.
Other additions to the portfolio include further Mirtec AOI, Ersascope2, RF testing facilities, the BTU ovens and Reprint printers. It looks like the next addition could be driven by the increasing use of µBGAs and the trend towards NPI work. Parker explained: "If we see a real need in the market then we will invest in it. An as example I am looking X-ray equipment at this moment in time. We have a bench top X-ray system at present but may look to invest in a larger system with a higher powered X-ray source, increased scan area and capability to tilt and rotate the subject pcb to provide a higher level of inspection capabilities. Currently when we have this requirement for this facility at the moment we go off site and hire process time. Having control over our own equipment investment means that decisions of this kind can be made as the customer requirements and technology move forward.
It is good to see a UK company prepared to invest, but as the company has grown every year to its current level of £8m turnover, it is no surprise that it has faith in its investment philosophy.
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