Assembly and inspection in mobile communications

SMC helps create revolution in automatic assembly and inspection with engineering systems for a company in the mobile communications industry.

The mobile communications industry, despite being based in an advanced and rapidly developing technological environment, is driven by the fast-changing fashion-led demands placed on it by style-conscious consumers.

It is this hunger to follow new trends that drives the speed of development and the introduction of new products with the short lifecycle that now governs the marketing of mobile telephones.

That, in turn, exerts massive demands on the adaptability, responsiveness and engineering ingenuity of this industry's suppliers.

One such supplier Parobautek of Kirkcaldy in Scotland is a highly innovative and flexible supplier of bespoke automated assembly systems and test machines.

It has developed a very close collaboration with SMC Pneumatics in partnership projects that maximise the Scottish company's creative engineering solutions for maximum automatic assembly efficiency in the highly competitive mobile telecommunications market.

The prime example of this teamwork approach to fulfilling the needs of mobile communications systems manufacturers is the UK's first application of a revolutionary new inspection and testing device - SMC's SMAC electronic actuator units - that is breaking new ground in automated, high-speed inspection technology.

Parobautek supplies customised automated assembly systems solutions to many of the household mobile telephone manufacturers and it has works within very demanding project tolerances to achieve increased assembly throughput at these very high volume mobile phone production operations.

The company needed to optimise the potential of its assembly systems across a pan-European market by achieving total and fully repeatable quality operation and field support to its key accounts in this demanding market, which narrowed the field of automatic drives and controls suppliers able to support that proposition very considerably.

The key driving force behind the development of the new Parobautek system was the need to radically streamline production efficiencies and accelerate throughput of mobile telephone assemblies.

To meet that objective Parobautek and SMC worked together to develop a system that is a multi-station rotary assembly unit for fitting together the small sprung plastic clips, which secure the battery pack to the rear of the main mobile phone body.

Operating at the moment at assembling at a rate of 40 parts per minute with ease (with further capacity for greater acceleration, if required), the pick and place assembly system provides a sophisticated and completely accurate operation within zero defect tolerances.

At the end of the assembly operation a key factor through SMC's supply of unique SMAC electronic actuator units, is the final automatic 100 per cent inspection and testing of the spring clips for spring tension, which selects defect assemblies for automatic rejection into a sealed container, thereby separating with total integrity, reject assemblies from the approved ones.

Parobautek believe this is the first machine of its kind to be built - certainly in this market sector - which can both produce high quality assemblies of small components and test them as a rapid, seamless automated zero defect function.

This is where the revolutionary SMAC units come in to their own.

The SMAC units on each system automatically test the spring tension on each of the spring clips after they have been assembled on preceding stations within the rotary operation to precisely measure, to stringent pre-set tolerances.

They also gauge the pressure required to move the spring and the distance it moves in order to operate the clip properly as well as an efficient return action to its original state.

The SMAC units provided by SMC are at the heart of the Parobautek system and such is their speed, total accuracy and reliability in this, the first full-scale UK implementation of them that SMC believe it is a mini-revolution in automated, high-speed inspection technology.

Parobautek identified that SMC, with its vast range of products and its technical and engineering and development resources in Milton Keynes was in a strong position to help the company realise its market potential in this area.

Added to which, SMC's ability to rapidly supply products and end-user support virtually anywhere in the world through its extensive field operations with subsidiaries in over 50 countries, could play a key strategic role in helping Parobautek fulfil the stringent customer service demands that are vital to this important market sector.

Flexibility is a key to the Parobautek system.

Because the mobile telephone market is so fashion-conscious the need for the telephone manufacturers to rapidly change products is essential and here the adaptability of Parobautek's engineering, supported by SMC's easily re-programmed control systems, is a major benefit.

"Parobautek's reputation in this marketplace to a great extent is now resting on SMC and the performance of its pneumatics.

We cannot afford mistakes but with the service we receive from SMC and the excellence of the products they can provide, plus the depth and range of their support to our end users anywhere, we have no worries," said Parobautek's Managing Director James Duff.

He continued to say that Parobautek, with this type of system has been able to achieve for one mobile phone manufacturer a significant ramp-up of high volume production throughput with complete reliability, such is the critically trouble-free performance of SMC's systems.

"For their quality and support at a justifiable price SMC have been integral to us meeting our objectives," he emphasised.

He added that working with a partner such as SMC enabled his company to consolidate its product development on the basis of access to a wide range of engineering options with completely predictable quality.

"The success of the automation business lies in eliminating grey areas.

Grey areas cost money but with SMC we are providing our end users with vital components that provide well-proven deliverables that are completely repeatable cost-efficiently." All machines have full diagnostics and a full range of alarm conditions to minimise production interruptions should they occur.

This includes warnings for the timely replenishment of the parts bins that feed the pick and place stations on the rotary equipment.

SMC's engineers comfortably assisted Parobautek in achieving total integration of the machine and controls interfaces, which also download real-time data on the performance of the system at each point of the rotary process through a link to a mainframe computer.

Parobautek also has a strong reputation in a number of vertical niche markets - such as the manufacture of specialist medical equipment - where it ability to provide bespoke automation systems precisely designed for specific applications is a great advantage.

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