Description
Low Volume PCB Assembly Introduction
SMT assembly is an important part of electronics manufacturing nowadays. Electronic products can be made smaller and integrated by mounting tiny components onto printed circuit boards. However, SMT assembly is also a highly automated process that requires a series of steps, such as stencil making, equipment setup, programming the machine, solder paste, and components preparation. These tasks require lots of time and resources, and these costs do not decrease much with low-volume PCB assembly. Therefore, to ensure normal business operations and profitability, companies usually charge engineering fees to cover these costs.
For the SMT assembly for medium-volume and high-volume PCB assemblies, you need to calculate the soldering points and stencil fees. However, the small volume PCB assembly makes it hard to spread the necessary costs based on its fewer units. The process is similar whether you assemble 1 piece or 100 PCB boards. Component inspection, storage checking, PCB baking, machine programming, solder paste inspection(SPI), API testing, first article inspection, aging tests, assembly, packaging, and shipping are all necessary. The labor costs for these steps remain the same, but these costs can be spread over mass production. While low volume cannot, this is why the engineering fees need to be charged.
How to make your low-volume PCB Assembly more efficient?
1, Define PCB Assembly requirements
It is important that you can tell your PCBA supplier your requirements, from material specifications to delivery time, as the more details you can give for the project, the more the PCBA supplier can make a suitable assembly plan.
2, Choose a Flexible and Right Supplier
Not all SMT assembly factories are good at low-volume orders, and you need to find a supplier that has the capability to change the lines quickly and flexibly on production. So they can better adapt to product diversity, reduce setup time, and shorten the delivery time. Meanwhile, the SMT assembly factories that use the ERP or MES systems can make the whole production line more visible and trackable. It will improve production efficiency and quality control.
No matter the low volume PCB assembly or mass production PCBA order, it is necessary to know your supplier’s quality control, such as whether their products can meet IPC standards, and strictly do the first article inspection and production control.
3, Evaluate the cost
It is a challenge for the low-volume PCBA production cost control, and you need to discuss with your supplier how to decrease the cost by making a reasonable plan, such as using more economical packaging, choosing other competitive alternative components, planning the production time, and so on. Don’t forget that long cooperation can also lower the price and improve the service.
In today’s fast-changing tech world, electronic products are being updated at a fast speed. This brings big challenges to SMT assembly factories, as they now must meet the strict demands: low-volume PCB Assembly, fast delivery, and perfect quality. how these assembly factories ensure good quality when making low volumes of prototype products?
- Enhance Incoming Material Inspection and Confirmation Procedures Strict material control is the first step in ensuring product quality. Only quality raw materials can form a solid foundation for subsequent production processes.
- Establish Special Quality Control Teams for New Projects For new prototyping projects, establish special quality control teams for new customers. This allows better understanding of customer requirements, early identification of production issues, and adherence of products to customer expectations.
- Use Professional Technical Teams A team of professional technicians is the competitive advantage of an SMT assembly plant. Experienced engineers and technicians with more than 10 years’ experience in the field of SMT can be proficient in different processes of production and solve technical problems efficiently when they arise during production.
- Adopt High-Precision Placement Machines High-precision placement machines can position components down to 0201, giving placement accuracy and efficiency. In small-batch production, accuracy and efficiency are a must, and high-precision placement machines meet this demand.
- Adhere to SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) in Production Enforce SOPs in all production stages, from SMT assembly to DIP (Dual In-line Package) soldering and backend assembly testing. SOPs ensure every step adheres to standardized procedures, guaranteeing product quality.
- Strict First-Article Confirmation Process The customer must approve the final first article on the basis of PCB drawings and PCBA samples. This guarantees that the product is in line with the customer’s design specifications, avoiding unnecessary disputes.
- Strict Control Over the SMT Assembly Process: Implement total control of the SMT assembly process, including solder paste viscosity testing, solder paste printing thickness testing, component placement accuracy testing, pre-reflow placement inspection, post-reflow periodic inspection, post-reflow AOI full inspection, and end-product inspection. With these measures, quality is ensured for each stage of the product. In short, prototyping quality management in small-batch SMT assembly is a question of paying careful attention to many factors and maintaining strict control over every process. Enterprises can be competitive only in such a tough market if they do this. During the production of electronics, SMT assembly is a key process with regard to efficiency, precision, and reliability.
As a procurement professional representing an electronics manufacturing company, a deep understanding of the intricate process of SMT assembly is essential to product quality and supply chain optimization.
FX PCB is an ISO9001 certificated PCB and PCBA supplier, and our capability and equipment can fulfill the needs of your low-volume PCB assembly order
