Making surface-mount production equipment smarter lets production lines operate for longer without unplanned intervention or stoppages


Empowering component mounters to monitor their own performance and detect anomalies in real time allows production to handle faults and unexpected events. By preventing minor issues from escalating into costly downtime, production can continue without halting and engineers can diagnose and fix any underlying problems at a suitable time. This can help reduce operational disruptions and improve overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), ultimately leading to greater productivity.


Enhanced Adaptability
Both software- and hardware-based systems have their place in ensuring manufacturing equipment can autonomously adapt to issues, securing continuous production and high productivity. In equipment such as high-speed surface mounters that contain inspection cameras and motion controls already built-in, these can provide a convenient opportunity to add new self-test capabilities by applying a software update. On the other hand, new hardware may be needed to introduce new tests that require extra sensors or actuators.

Nozzle problems, often due to blockages, are a common issue that surface-mount production teams must deal with frequently. Nozzles are loaded and unloaded from the placement head and kept in a storage station when unused. The position of each nozzle is assigned at setup and typically remains fixed until the machine is reprogrammed at the next product changeover.

In Yamaha’s latest YRM mounters, new Nozzles-Free Layout software (figure 1) lets the machine manage the nozzles according to their identity and not by their positions in the nozzle station. Each nozzle has a unique identity assigned with a 2D code. With nozzles-free layout, the machine returns nozzles to any station position.