26 October 2022Manufacturing / Production Technology, Hardware & Services
Finally, within the last year, Microtronix has acquired eight Panasonic NPM modules and recently, eight NPM-w modules and associated equipment from Yekani. This is a combined total of 50 machines for service to its customers.
However, operational and facilities challenges are common with all equipment acquisitions, the most obvious being the supply of power to the factories. The recent spate of loadshedding has created havoc at the plants. The larger industrial factory operates on a 24/7 basis and with an approximate 50% duty cycle of power in September the generators ran for half the production time, incurring massive costs. Despite having a huge generator and almost 1 MVA in UPS capacity, the constant power cuts caused considerable damage to machine cards, drive motors and servo drives on the older machines, costing the company unplanned expenditures.
The second challenge is space. Microtronix recently expanded its SMD area by a further 1000 m2 to accommodate three new Panasonic lines. The new lines, once fully operational at the end of October, will give Microtronix a boost in capacity and a relief from the ongoing maintenance being performed on the older Universal fleet.
These new lines will give the company the capacity to continuously run certain products on dedicated lines, reducing the need to constantly swap products on its older lines. Reduced setups should increase production times and boost quality and efficiencies, hopefully further reducing costs.
The new Panasonic lines all have feeder trollies allowing Microtronix to do offline setups and then perform hot swaps when required. Both new lines are well equipped with 3D SPI (Solder Paste Inspection) and Final 3D Pemtron AOI. All the new equipment is supported by Techmet, which carried out the relocation of the equipment as well as new setups and calibration on some infrastructure upgrades and plant expansion. Microtronix still believes in the operation of three plants – small, medium, and large – to accommodate clients across the industry spectrum. The company has always maintained there is no job too small for it and now it can confidently offer huge growth potential together with its larger clients.
The component and semiconductor shortage remains a challenge to everyone in the industry and re-design based on component availability seems to be the norm these days. A definite trend away from Chinese manufacturing has been noted as China experiences similar power cuts and component shortages. Costs of manufacturing in China appear to be rising and, adding in the massive freight increases, could make South Africa become competitive in the electronics sector.
Microtronix recently successfully completed a project in conjunction with Seven Labs for the full supply and manufacture of 20 000 complex double-sided PCBs for delivery to a company in Canada. The Canadian company made the decision to look outside of China, and on completion of the project cited huge appreciation for the open and honest way in which business is conducted in South Africa. Firstly, an improvement in communication due to the common language spoken, but secondly and most importantly, a high level of trust in terms of components supplied for the product.
As always, thanks go out from Microtronix to the component suppliers, customers and staff for their support in the past three years.
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