Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Variosystems to Store Components Locally in Production
Tower Automatic storage system increases the flexibility of production
Steinach - Switzerland. Variosystems, the international electronics manufacturing subcontractor, manages thousands of components for its customers and assembly jobs. Until recently the component storage has required big efforts. Today, the Tower automatic storage system from Essemtec simplifies logistics and increases the flexibility of the production. Component reels and trays can now be stored locally in production.
For several months Variosystems has been testing the Tower storage system in production. Opened component reels and trays were not returned to the main storage any more but kept within the Tower. With this concept, logistic effort could be minimized, feeder setup time could be reduced and the flexibility of the production could be increased. Based on the positive experience and savings the decision had been taken to automate the complete component stock and move it into production.
Variosystems implements multiple Tower automatic storage systems from Essemtec. The Tower protects components from ESD, humidity and high temperatures while they are not set-up on feeders. It features a controlled dry climate wherein components with MSL classification can be stored even without dry packs. Storage and retrieving of components is simple, fast and fully automatic.
A tower offers storage space for 546 reels. For more storage capacity multiple towers can be clustered. The system includes software for stock management and consumption tracking. Retrieving of components is just-in-time when they are needed for feeder setup. The access time for every component is only 8 to 12 seconds.
The Tower can reduce component storage and management costs in small or large production. It shortens access and handling time, avoids unnecessary baking of MSL classified components and it can save masses of MSL and ESD protection packing materials.
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