PCB News - In the PCBA circuit board OEM manufacturing stage, how can companies reduce production costs!

In the PCBA circuit board OEM manufacturing stage, how can companies reduce production costs!
China has now become the "manufacturing factory of the world", and the competition in China's manufacturing industry is becoming increasingly fierce. The PCB electronics manufacturing industry bears the brunt. The most important and direct content of its competition is cost, quality, and delivery time. Therefore, how to continuously improve product quality, reduce product costs, improve work efficiency, and shorten delivery time is the main content of manufacturing enterprise management.

SMT is the surface assembly technology, which is currently the most popular technology and process in the electronics assembly industry.

SMT basic process components: solder paste printing (or dispensing) --> solder paste inspection --> placement --> (curing) --> reflow soldering --> inspection --> repair.

1. SMT production cost structure

Product production cost is the sum of the direct materials, direct labor, including costs due to product quality issues, and other direct or indirect costs actually consumed by the company in the production process. In the questionnaire of the production cost composition of SMT enterprises, the proportion is generally that equipment and maintenance account for 40% ~ 43% of the total cost, material loss accounts for 19% ~ 22%, and product repair and maintenance costs account for 17% ~ 21%. Labor costs account for 15% to 17% of the total cost of SMT, and other expenses account for 2%. It can be seen from the above that SMT production costs are mainly concentrated in fixed assets such as equipment, repair and maintenance costs, raw material loss and scrap, and SMT production material costs. Therefore, we can start from the above aspects to reduce production costs.

SMT production costs are generally divided into manufacturing costs and quality costs. Product manufacturing costs are the direct materials, direct labor, and other direct costs actually consumed in the process of producing products and providing labor services. In SMT production, direct materials refer to electronic components, silk screen templates, welding materials, dispensing materials, cleaning materials, etc.;

The wages, labor fees, bonus allowances, overtime pay, etc. of the personnel engaged in SMT production directly manually; other manufacturing expenses are all costs related to the manufacturing process except materials and labor, including various items consumed in the workshop, machinery and equipment The cost of materials used for maintenance, water, electricity, lighting, air-conditioning, and office expenses for production.

The cost of quality is the cost and loss caused by the enterprise to ensure that the satisfactory quality is achieved and the loss caused by the failure to obtain the satisfactory quality. Among them, prevention cost refers to the cost paid to prevent the occurrence of quality defects;

Appraisal cost refers to the cost of testing, inspection and inspection to assess whether the product has the specified quality; internal defect cost refers to the loss caused by the product's failure to meet the specified quality requirements before delivery (in the whole process) ;

External defect cost refers to the loss caused by the product's failure to meet the specified quality requirements after delivery; external quality assurance cost refers to the cost of providing objective evidence, demonstration and certification to meet the quality assurance requirements specified in the contract.

2. Waste in SMT production

Waste refers to activities that do not add value, or despite adding value, the resources used exceed the "absolute minimum" limit. In the SMT production process, only activities that physically change the material can add value in the production process. Such as welding, assembly, etc. add value, inventory, handling, inspection, etc. do not add value. Activities that do not increase value but increase costs are wasteful. Manufacturers generally believe that profit = price-cost. At present, the SMT production price is basically fixed, while the cost can be controlled. The only way for companies to increase profits is to reduce costs, and the most important thing to reduce costs is to eliminate waste in production.

3. Waste in SMT production

1. The waste of equipment, including the operation rate of the placement machine, and the low utilization rate. If there is no 24-hour non-stop operation, some equipment is accelerated due to poor maintenance, equipment is idle, equipment failure causes downtime and maintenance costs, etc. Waste

2. The waste of materials, including the throwing of the placement machine, the loss and damage of chips, small components, the damage of the PCB board, the scrap, and the solder paste. The weight of the used solder paste is not accurately calculated, resulting in waste and storage. Cause deterioration, scrap, etc.;

3. The waste of repair and maintenance refers to the waste of time, manpower and material resources that need to be disposed of due to defective products in production, and related losses caused thereby. This type of waste specifically includes: loss of materials, defective products turned into waste; loss of equipment, personnel, and working hours; loss of additional repair, identification, and additional inspection;

4. Human waste refers to activities that do not add value in production, there are too many processes, the production line is unreasonable, unbalanced, and uneconomical. It is not a flow operation. The existence of bottleneck processes causes product backlogs, idle personnel, and improper personnel arrangements. In place, the loss of personnel in key positions;

5. Waste of work methods, unbalanced work and improper production planning, etc. caused by waiting for nothing to do, no operating procedures, no standard work, chaotic flow, and the work has not been optimized;

6. Other aspects, such as production management staff, production support staff costs, office costs, air-conditioning, water, electricity and lighting costs.

4. How does SMT reduce costs?

4.1 From the cost structure into five major aspects to reduce costs

After understanding the cost composition of production, the waste in production, and the bottleneck, we can control and manage it in a targeted manner to achieve the purpose of reducing costs.

1. Equipment: Equipment is the material basis for enterprises to produce products and provide services. From the proportion of the survey above, the most important thing in SMT production enterprises is equipment cost, and equipment cost is the key part. In the production, the efficiency of equipment operation should be improved, and large orders can be operated for 24 hours. The placement machine should adopt non-stop refueling methods to reduce the waste of time caused by refueling.

2. In terms of materials: In SMT production, solder paste, glue, etc. are relatively expensive. Dispensing and printing must be controlled as special processes. At present, the price of solder paste is rising steadily, and the cost of implementing lead-free is higher. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce loss and waste, and accurately calculate the weight of each batch of products to use solder paste to control consumption under the premise of ensuring quality. To the least.

3. Quality cost: Including the cost of repair and maintenance. Quality cost is mainly composed of prevention cost, appraisal cost, internal defect cost and external defect cost.

4. Labor cost: remove some personnel who do not add value, including indirect personnel, redundant management personnel and SMT auxiliary personnel, and appoint competent engineers and technical experts. According to the IE method, "cancel, merge, rearrange and simplify" existing production personnel, production processes, and on-site layouts that are unreasonable, uneconomical, and unbalanced. Employees use a shift system to work, because overtime pay is higher than normal work pay, as well as meal expenses, transportation expenses, etc., shift pay is not calculated as overtime.

5. Operation method: make a good production plan, formulate standard working hours, standard operations and main processes must have process regulations or work instructions, workers strictly operate in accordance with process documents, process documents are controlled, and the current valid version of the process can be obtained on site document. Process documents and materials should be done: the font is neat, filling and changing are standardized, complete, accurate, and timely. The technological process must be scientific and reasonable, and the operability must be strong. Elimination of blind operations and non-compliance with process regulations, thereby reducing quality problems and lowering production costs.
At present, the country has higher and higher requirements for environmental protection and greater efforts in link governance. This is a challenge but also an opportunity for PCB factories. If the PCB factory is determined to solve the problem of environmental pollution, then FPC flexible circuit board products can be at the forefront of the market, and the PCB factory can get the opportunity to develop again.