In the WORKS Planning workflow, ASMPT integrates tedious planning functions into a user interface, making it easy to operate and conforming to ergonomic principles.

After importing order data from the ERP system, WORKS Planning can accurately match customer needs with production and operation specifications.

WORKS Planning provides robust support for production planners, enabling them to efficiently execute core workflows such as scheduling, material management, production preparation, and line control. It automates most tedious planning processes, significantly reducing processing time while enhancing factory productivity.

Utilize WORKS Planning for preliminary planning, optimize the use of all available resources, and ensure strict adherence to and achievement of the set deadlines in the most efficient manner.

For detailed planning, the WORKS Logistics application can precisely select a solution that perfectly integrates production requirements with final delivery dates, ensuring that existing equipment is fully utilized while taking into account the feeding sequence and other production-related factors.

The WORKS applications of ASMPT are highly integrated with factory solutions, enabling them to generate planning results based on real-time data. By automatically analyzing component commonalities and creating series settings, the subsequent planning process is simplified, reducing workload and ensuring efficient operation of the production line.

In order to ensure efficient production operations and on-time delivery, the key is to accurately balance order requirements, customer specific technical requirements, and resource allocation priorities to match the actual operational needs of the SMT production line. For this purpose, adopting a two-stage system is particularly effective, with WORKS Planning and WORKS Logistics (both part of the ASMPT WORKS software suite), which can assist in precise planning and efficient execution.

In the fiercely competitive SMT production field, on-time delivery and cost-effectiveness have become increasingly challenging. The tradition of delivering within a week, which was not long ago, has changed. Nowadays, customers not only require precise delivery to specified dates, but also prefer personalized ordering of small batches and multiple varieties. Faced with these stricter new requirements, the production system must have unprecedented flexibility and efficiency, especially in a severe environment where cost pressures continue to rise.

Production Planning - Highly Complicated Tasks

Nowadays, success increasingly relies on intelligent and networked production planning, which requires precise balance between customer needs and production line operation standards. The purpose is to maximize the utilization of existing production capacity while minimizing production interruptions and line changes. Therefore, the planning process has become a highly tedious task, with the optimization of order production sequence becoming the decisive factor.

Taking solder paste replacement as an example, even a simple replacement from lead containing solder paste to lead-free solder paste requires heating or cooling in a reflow oven to adapt to different melting points, which may result in a production interruption of up to 30 minutes. In view of this, orders using the same solder paste will be continuously allocated to the same production line, which is a reasonable and efficient arrangement.

In addition, some batches require X-ray inspection of the ball grid array, while others contain special-shaped parts (OSCs) that require double heads to be mounted, which are not equipped on every production line. This simple case involving only three core elements fully reveals the complexity of the problem - different needs are intertwined and influence each other.

If we consider the possibility of production line gaps and other unforeseeable factors for certain products, the entire production system forms a complex and variable multidimensional matrix, and in this complexity, there is only one optimal solution.

Relying on individual professional talents - hidden

issues and challenges

In factories that adopt manual planning processes, the effectiveness of production scheduling still largely depends on individual employees, especially those with deep industry experience and extensive expertise. They have a deep understanding of the product and customer needs. However, this excessive reliance on specific personnel poses potential operational risks, especially in areas where the bond between the company and employees is not strong enough or as stable as in German companies. Once such senior dispatchers resign, they will also lose professional knowledge and experience, which will undoubtedly affect the operation of the entire production. In addition, given the increasing scarcity of technical personnel, it has become increasingly difficult to find a replacement who can fulfill their position.

Industry professionals create exclusive software

Even experienced senior employees may find it difficult to fully track the entire process matrix when introducing new products. Therefore, automating the planning process has become particularly important. However, although this goal may sound simple, it is actually quite difficult to implement. When developing new software products, developers must be familiar with the various conditions and processes of modern SMT production, while also taking into account the personalized needs of different factories, as each factory is unique. Pure software developers often encounter setbacks in such projects because they often lack the necessary industry background knowledge and practical production experience.

However, ASMPT successfully achieved this goal. As a globally renowned enterprise, its product portfolio covers almost the entire SMT production process. With the close cooperative relationship established with customers, ASMPT has a profound understanding of the needs of modern production lines. After clearly defining the functional specifications, this technology leading enterprise decided to adopt the concept of two-stage planning and integrate it into the workflow design of the WORKS software suite.

Preliminary and detailed planning of workflow

WORKS Planning can cleverly balance customer needs and production standards. Before production starts, the software automatically generates a preliminary production plan lasting 3 to 5 days. This process first imports order data through the ERP system. Subsequently, the preliminary planning phase aims to clarify order priorities and arrange generated orders through precise sorting. The system will first reverse calculate production progress from the promised delivery date. If there is a resource conflict that prevents delivery on the scheduled date, the system will automatically search for available alternative resources and generate a forward-looking production plan to maximize loading efficiency. This preliminary planning process is specifically focused on customer needs.

However, from the perspective of the factory, simply following customer-oriented planning may not always lead to smooth execution, as material supply bottlenecks or resource constraints may force adjustments to the production sequence in the final stages of the production cycle. This is the moment when the importance of the fine planning stage begins to emerge. It is usually arranged in advance one to two shifts before the expected production start. At this stage, production tasks are assigned to specific production lines, and various processes including inventory retrieval, loading, etc. are carefully planned to ensure seamless transition and on-time start of the next round of production.

WORKS Logistics has developed a solution that optimally matches production specifications with deadlines, aiming to maximize the efficiency of existing production equipment. Once these production batches are completed, the software can also automatically transmit relevant information back to the ERP system.

Core Concept - Smart Factory

All of this was successfully executed thanks to ASMPT's advocacy of a data-driven integrated smart factory concept. This concept relies on the data generated by all production lines in the entire factory. All kinds of data generated within the factory are collected and centrally processed, efficiently interconnected through standardized interfaces, and used in various application scenarios, including quality management, fault analysis, reasonable personnel deployment, seamless material flow control, and workflow optimization (especially the planning process as described earlier).

ASMPT has integrated these tedious planning functions into one user interface, which is easy to operate and conforms to ergonomic principles. Even beginners in the planning field can formulate the optimal planning scheme through this interface.The collaboration between WORKS Planning and WORKS Logistics has achieved an important goal: planning tasks no longer rely on specific personnel, and now these tasks can be easily expanded to new work locations. The deployment of this suite is usually fast, stable, and has a low failure rate. If any functional deficiencies are found, the ASMPT team will quickly improve them through software extensions.

Faster, more convenient, and more efficient

In practical applications, the advantages of the new system quickly become apparent, "said Mathias Heinz, ASMPT Product Manager. This software provides powerful support for planners, enabling them to organize and summarize orders based on their needs, set up a series of orders, and more. Automated workflows can simulate and analyze multiple order combinations at an unprecedented speed. Electronic manufacturers often marvel at the untapped potential in their devices.

Given the actual operational status of modern SMT factories, each production line needs to undergo up to 5 to 6 line changes per day. It is not difficult to find that by optimizing process properties such as lead-free and lead containing solder paste, production time can be significantly shortened. Actual cases have shown that using intelligent planning systems can reduce the number of loading times by at least 20%, or even more. In addition, data-driven planning solutions alone can flexibly respond to sudden increases in order demand without the need for additional investment in new hardware.

The use of this system also significantly reduces human resource costs. In the past, processing 150 to 200 orders per week required the full effort of a full-time staff member; And now, the personnel responsible for this job have more time to take on other tasks.

Heinz further stated, "The most important thing is that by implementing more precise planning schemes, the management ability of the final delivery date can be significantly improved, laying the foundation for smooth workflow in the future, and ultimately benefiting the customers. The launch of WORKS Planning marks ASMPT taking the planning and scheduling of electronic product production to a new level. As a leading software in the SMT production field, WORKS Planning integrates map management and tedious planning process optimization functions. In short, WORKS Planning makes clients' work easier.