Flexibility, Lean Manufacturing & the Future of Electronics | Christopher Janssen, GPC Electronics | Hawker Richardson Thought Leadership Series

As GPC is a contract manufacturer and you cater to some of the globe’s most iconic companies, including start-ups, how important is it for SMT machine choices to deliver flexibility?

In the 1990s, we were running dedicated lines in relatively high volumes. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Asia started coming on stream more, and that changed our marketplace to more of a high-mix environment rather than pure volume. Flexibility became important so that we could make different products for different customers.

People didn’t want to commit themselves. They wanted to make lots of products over the year, but they told us with relatively short notice what product they wanted, when they wanted it, and which variant it was, and expected us to turn that around very quickly. So, flexibility on the machines is very important.

What are some of the production challenges that the Yamaha mounters have helped you overcome at GPC Electronics?

When you look at subcontracting more generally, people trust you with their operations. They’re very dependent on us, or their contractor, to support them in whatever they need in their supply of products.

With equipment and processes, we look for something we can do reliably, reproducibly and consistently to produce the volumes, quality, and throughput.

We needed a machine that we could use in multiple sites, as we have facilities in New Zealand and China. We commonised the processes for more interoperability between the different facilities.

Yamaha machines gave us what we needed: flexibility and throughput, reliability in terms of placements, consistency, accuracy and quality.

The Yamaha line installed in 2016 included YsUP S-Tools for offline setup. How important has the utilisation of YsUP been for the set-up and changeover processes at GPC, especially with high-mix considerations?

For us, it’s critical to change products over very quickly to respond to customers’ demands.

We reduced changeovers, including the first stop inspections and everything else, from four hours to about half an hour. In part, that’s because we started doing offline setups and switchovers. We’re probably running somewhere between 160 and 180 different jobs in the factory at any given time, requiring the ability to change quickly.

We also have jobs where we do small volumes of ones and twos, both for prototypes, and for some customers who don’t have huge volumes, and want to start up with a smaller batch run. To do these effectively, we set up offline and make the changeover. The software allows us to do that and be flexible.

Do you feel that the installation and commissioning process went well?

It’s critical to develop reliable processes, as customers expect us to deliver. We make sure that our equipment keeps running well and doesn’t stop. A stoppage creates all sorts of disruption and delays our promises to customers.

These machines run virtually without any interruption. It’s been fantastic to get the good support from Hawker Richardson. We’ve been running the machines for many years, in Australia and New Zealand. Our routine maintenance keeps them up to speed, so we can count on them running without interruption.

As GPC is typically a high-mix manufacturing facility, it must be quite important to have reliable partners for after-sales support.

Part of that is having a whole system, including maintenance and support, ready to go. If something goes wrong, we can call someone quickly, even at night or late evening during shifts. It’s a great advantage knowing we can get back up and running when we need to.

You are a Director / Advisory Board member of the Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering. How important is it for manufacturers in Australasia to promote engineering and encourage the next generation of engineers?

Over the last ten to fifteen years, manufacturing has declined, and fewer people have thought that manufacturing was an option for them. We work with universities to get students to do their work experience at GPC. It’s clean, air-conditioned, and they play on all sorts of automated equipment.

We see engineers from mechatronics backgrounds, electrical engineers, and mechanical engineers, and all of them can play a part in what we’re doing here. We hope that people get excited about the opportunities in the manufacturing sector and stay to develop it. GPC has people who’ve been with us a long time, many over 20 years.

We look at how we develop the next generation of technically capable people. We need to keep evolving. What are we going to do in the next five years? Young people show aptitude for engaging with digital processes. More and more processes are digitised, from how we quote, send drawings, order things, run and test equipment.

People thought software was the answer to everything, but hardware and manufacturing are areas where people can add a lot of value and create a lot of excitement.

As a Lean Manufacturing advocate, how important is it for Australian manufacturers to use SMT line software to analyse machine performance, maximise throughput and optimise efficiency?”

Nowadays, everything becomes critical. People are driving how much one can get from existing resources, leveraging every tool in their armamentarium. I don’t think there’s one solution to everything, so we work on all areas. We’ve touched on setups, including doing certain tasks offline.

Digitisation allows us to track and analyse processes. We monitor the lines in real-time to see yields and throughput. We also have optical inspection at the end of the line. The operators running the surface mounter see defects and can examine the cause and adjust if necessary. Sometimes it’s product-related and sometimes it’s process-related. This means that we can drive our yields much higher.

Reducing rework is cost-effective, but also means the product is more reliable in the field. Using these processes and capturing the data allows us to talk with our customers and give them feedback on their products. We can work with them to achieve better reliability from their products. It works across the spectrum, ensuring we have clear visibility into what’s happening within the systems.

Further reading: Three Yamaha Mounters Installed at GPC