Inventory Management: What it Feels Like to Save Time and Money
By Eddy Lin, Scienscope Owner
Running a successful SMT production is becoming an increasingly demanding proposition in terms of inventory management. Meeting deadlines and ensuring customer satisfaction can lead to a plethora of unfinished reels, sometimes with only a few hundred resistors or capacitors left over. Since you can’t be sure if there’s enough for the next run, these reels get stored in the back of your warehouse. Inevitable, these perfectly good components get forgotten about the longer they are left unaccounted for.
What‘s the cost of having employees count these reels? The value of an individual reel might not even be worth the cost of the time an employee would spend counting by hand or with an older reel-to-reel cranking machine. So sometimes the components continue to collect dust in the back of the warehouse, waiting for someone to make the call: either return to stock with an unknown quantity and create the potential for a line stop or scrap the unused parts and accept the lost dollars. Before long, the warehouse is filled with these reels, and the days needed to salvage the leftovers still haven’t arrived.
Sound familiar? This is exactly what Biamp, a leading provider of professional AV equipment based in Beaverton, OR, was experiencing. Fortunately, they found a solution: Scienscope’s fully automatic X-ray component counter, the AXI 5100c II.
“We installed the AXI 5100c II at our main manufacturing facility and were able to retrieve over $12,000 of scrap components the very same afternoon,” said Nate Holder, Manufacturing Engineer at Biamp. “We’ve since implemented the machine to count all parts before returning them to stock: more than 600 reels per day. We’re greatly impressed by the machine and have seen 40 percent of our ROI within the first four months.”
Around the world, around the clock, Biamp equipment manages and delivers immersive AV experiences. With professional AV systems installed in more than 100 countries, the company goes beyond making sound intelligible. Its systems make sound resonate clearly and naturally, for the most effective communications possible.
Scienscope’s AXI 5100C II helps Biamp save money while efficiently counting all parts before returning them to stock.
With a goal of delivering, managing, and enhancing professional audio and video, Biamp’s manufacturing process is key. From initial DSP design and engineering development, to prototyping and fabrication, in-depth testing and quality assurance, the company manages everything within its walls. The result is shorter lead times, faster response and increased convenience. Constantly providing these is possible only by being efficient and organized at all times. Keeping track of its components helps Biamp meet its goal, which, in turn, helps its customers be more successful. Scienscope’s AXI 5100c II provides this solution for Biamp.
Scienscope’s AXI 5100c II is an advanced, automated component counting system, featuring an automatic loader and label printer. This fully automated system communicates with data management providing complete inventory control and by using an inline integrated conveyor system, it counts components faster than any system on the planet.
Scienscope was founded almost 25 years ago in Chino, CA to meet the growing need for reliable general-purpose optical and video inspection solutions for the electronics and PCB industries. The company began with basic stereo zoom microscopes used for SMT inspection and rework of circuit boards and electromechanical assemblies with a commitment to quality, value and support. Over the years, Scienscope has evolved to become a complete inspection solutions provider, offering microscopes, measurement system, and industrial X-ray inspection to meet a wide variety of applications and manufacturing quality requirements. With a full line of ergonomic video inspection and microscope systems, powerful X-ray system capabilities, and precision metrology solutions, Scienscope helps customers like Biamp tackle their toughest manufacturing and quality challenges.
To find out more about Biamp, contact the company at 9300 SW Gemini Dr., Beaverton, OR 97008; 503-641-7287; Email: biampinfo@biamp.com; Web site: www.biamp.com. For more information about Scienscope, contact Owner Eddy Lin at 5751 Schaefer Ave., Chino, CA; 909-494-5513; E-mail: info@scienscope.com; Web site: www.scienscope.com.