Electronic engineering equipment: Pick and place machines
The engineering equipment that keeps the production line running smoothly
Pick and place machine capacity boast
EMP has just invested in its third pick and place machine. ‘Cookie Monster’ has increased our capacity by 50%. It allows us to smoothly produce the increasing volumes of printed circuit boards (PCBs) that we now need, whilst also giving us the flexibility to respond rapidly to R&D projects with high quality prototypes.
How the pick and place process works
We’ve had 2 machines for some time but with the volume of PCBs required increasing, and with extended lead times from external manufacturers, we needed a solution to create more PCBs in-house. We did consider replacing the existing machines with a single, faster unit along with a range of other options. However, simply adding a third pick and place has allowed us to keep our through-put fully functional and increase the performance of what we are producing.
Some of our circuit boards will be run through more than one machines and by having a third machine in place we are able to create higher volumes on 2 machines, keeping the third ready for high turnaround bespoke boards.
R&D department flexible and responsive
In the early days we created boards by hand, but now the complexity and size of components mean that we require a pick and place machine to ensure the quality of the prototype.
Having the pick and place capability inhouse, allows us to produce a one-off board rapidly with design files set up to run a small batch of if required. We are able to produce a single board that will be of the same professional quality and go through the same processes as batch boards.
Design street
So Cookie Monster has joined Bert & Ernie who live on our electronic design street along with our jetter machine and oven. Our recent move to the much larger premises at Camberley has given us a single space large enough to have all the machines set up in a row. This streamlines the process flow of design and production and helps us deliver more efficiently on our clients’ requirements.
