Newsroom
Visit NEMI at Booth #710
Factory Information System Forum
Convention Center, Room 555AB
Wednesday, October 28, 1:30-3:00 p.m.
NEMI’s Factory Information Systems Group
Demonstrates "Plug & Play" Manufacturing Capabilities
at IPC/SMTA Electronics Assembly Expo
Press Contacts at bottom of page
Providence, RI · October 28, 1998 · The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI) today demonstrated the advances it has made in "plug and play" manufacturing capabilities. This demo was done by the Plug and Play Factory Project as part of the NEMI-sponsored Factory Information System (FIS) Forum at the IPC/SMTA Electronics Assembly Expo in Providence, RI.
A project of NEMI’s FIS Technology Implementation Group (TIG), the Plug and Play Factory focuses on the development of standards necessary to achieve interoperability · i.e., plug and play capability · among hardware components used by North American electronics manufacturers. Activities of the group are broken into three areas:
- definition of standards for a software framework that will allow interoperability among software and equipment produced by different vendors
- development of process-specific machine communication interface standards for surface mount equipment, to be based on SEMI's Generic Equipment Model (GEM) specification
- establishment of a test bed manufacturing line at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta) to prove the concepts developed by the project
Today’s forum demonstrated the capabilities of the framework. The demo involved data collection over the Internet from a diverse set of electronics manufacturing equipment, all made by different vendors. A PC-based Web browser in Providence collected data and process information from assembly, inspection, test, placement and other types of equipment located on the Plug and Play Factory Test Bed line at Georgia Tech.
At the core of the demonstration is a software framework, based on XML (extensible mark-up language), which provides a common interface among all the hardware components on a PCB manufacturing line (in this case, the Georgia Tech test bed). It allows data to be collected from all the machines on the line and displayed inside the Web browser.
In the past, manufacturing systems have typically been proprietary, and for the screen printer equipment (for example) to be able to interface with the solder paste inspection equipment, they both had to be made by the same vendor. With the Plug and Play framework, the component placement equipment from ABC can interface with a piece of functional test equipment from XYZ.
"If the industry can develop a set of standards for interoperability, hardware and software vendors will be able to introduce component-based solutions, similar to what has happened in the PC industry," says Allan Fraser, Director of Component Software Engineering for GenRad, Inc. and NEMI project leader. "The advantage is that it will enable electronics manufacturers to greatly reduce the costs of integrating new pieces of hardware and software into their operations. It will also allow them to tailor functionality to meet their needs at a specific point in time, while at the same time providing them with the flexibility to easily adapt as their needs evolve."
"Increasingly, major manufacturers are contracting a greater volume and a greater breadth of work to their first tier suppliers, the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) companies," says Barbara Goldstein, Project Leader of the Infrastructure for Integrated Electronics Manufacturing Project with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and co-chair of the NEMI Factory Information System TIG. "These ‘contract manufacturers’ handle multiple customers and work on very thin margins, so interoperability is particularly critical for them. EMS companies find themselves trying to integrate information that comes in a variety of incompatible formats in order to program their factories to manufacture products that may change as often as every shift. The Plug & Play Factory Project is addressing this problem by developing a standard to ease the information integration burden."
"It is so important for companies across the industry to work together toward the common goal of identifying standard interfaces," says Carlos Fernández, director of Manufacturing Advanced Technology for Compaq, who is a member of NEMI’s Technical Committee and coach for the FIS TIG. "The NEMI Plug and Play Factory Project provides an excellent forum for this effort. NEMI provides the focus on finding a business solution rather than a purely technical solution, and the test bed at Georgia Tech provides an impartial, unbiased setting for putting the ideas in place and executing them."
Plug and Play Factory participants include original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), suppliers to the North American electronics industry, and government and academic agencies. OEM participants are AMP Incorporated, COMPAQ Computer, Delphi Electronics, Intel, and Lucent. Suppliers participants are EDS, GenRad, Inc., ICC/GR Software, and Universal Instruments. Government and academic agencies include the Georgia Institute of Technology, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and Sandia National Laboratories.
About NEMI
The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative was formed in November 1994 to facilitate long-term North American leadership in electronics. The industry-led consortium is made up of more than 50 electronics equipment manufacturers, suppliers, associations, government agencies and universities. NEMI’s members represent a combined total of more than $200 billion in 1998 revenues and employ more than 1.25 million people.
NEMI roadmaps the needs of the North American electronics industry, identifies gaps in the technology infrastructure, establishes implementation projects to eliminate these gaps, and stimulates standards activities to speed the introduction of new technologies. The consortium also works with government, universities and other funding agencies to set priorities for future industry needs and R&D initiatives.
For more information, please contact:
Cynthia Williams
207-871-1260
cwilliams@nemi.org
Ron Gedney
NEMI
703-834-2084
rgedney@nemi.org