What's the best company for low volume, quick turn around PCB assembly?

Posted: May 26, 2022 by: NJ

What is low volume printed circuit board assembly?

The development trend of PCB Assembly: from the production of small varieties and large batches to the flexible production of multi-variety and variable batches, to adapt to market changes and customer needs. It is roughly divided into two stages: rigid mass production mode and flexible lean advanced manufacturing mode. The change of production mode is always adapting to the needs of the market. The fierce market competition forces the production of enterprises to be oriented to the needs of the market and customers, requiring the production of enterprises to have great flexibility and to produce small batches of various varieties. In this way, enterprises can respond faster than their opponents in the competition, and produce products that better meet customer requirements to seize the market and improve their competitiveness.

The characteristics and requirements of the production method of low volume PCB assembly:

1. Many varieties and specifications, strong speciality
2. Small production batch.
3. Manufacture of small batches and varieties using general-purpose equipment.
4. Small batches and multiple varieties require workers to have a high degree of technical proficiency.
5. The continuity of the manufacturing process is not strong, the production is often alternated, and the production technology preparation workload is large.

The above summarizes the main characteristics of PCBA small batch and multi-variety production. Quality control is much more difficult in small batch and multi-variety manufacturing environments than in mass production. Not only are there more factors that affect product quality, but the relationship between these factors is more complicated. Therefore, not every PCBA manufacturer can provide good small-batch PCB assembly services.

What are the benefits of low volume PCB assembly?

Enhance The Competitive Capability.

With the progress of society, the productivity of human society has been continuously improved, and the era when productivity equals profitability is gone forever. Except for a few underdeveloped countries and regions that are self-isolating, the global commodity has been greatly enriched, and the oversupply of commodities has become a problem. Market segmentation is gradually deepening, and people's individual needs are increasing. Homogeneous goods produced in mass production have lost productivity to customers. Today's society is highly personalized, which means that the needs of customers are increasingly diversified and personalized, small-batch PCBA production can maximize customer value, and manufacturers can continuously manufacture products according to orders. Driven by such a market, multi-variety and small-volume PCB Assembly can largely maintain the competitiveness of the enterprise.

Shorten the turnaround time

The large-scale production mode determines its long production cycle. Whether it is component procurement, PCB manufacturing, SMT, or inter-process assistance, small volume production has an advantage over mass production in terms of turnaround time. Facing the changeable market demand, the risk of merchants is also increasing, inventory means risk; For new products and new markets, time means market share and profits. Enterprises need PCBA supply chains that can handle orders flexibly and have short lead times to reduce turnaround time.

How to Choose a small batch PCB Assembly Company？

The small batch production of PCB Assembly needs to meet the short production cycle to be meaningful, otherwise, it will make the products lag on the market and lose the competitiveness, but the short cycle will naturally cause quality instability, which has always been a difficult problem for the PCBA industry to solve. It is very challenging for ordinary EMS(Electronic Manufacturing Service) companies to meet both stable quality and short production cycles. It must meet the following requirements:

（1）Strong BOM purchasing and management ability. As we all know, Whether it is proofing and small batch production stage or mass production stage, BOM procurement and management is an extremely complicated but crucial link. In small batch production, the efficiency of component procurement is critical to the lead time. It is very challenging for traditional PCBA manufacturers to ensure both efficiency and quality. Especially in the context of the shortage of components, the components market is mixed, true and false, even if there is a poor component that will have a serious impact on the entire production.AiPCBA's component quality assurance department ICQC and THE AiBOM management system built by AiPCBA with big data can ensure our BOM supply efficiency and quality.

（2） High-quality PCB supply chain. The processing process of PCBA is established on the PCB board, and all the subsequent processes are placed on the PCB board, so the quality of PCB determines the quality of the whole PCBA.So a good PCB is the foundation of a good PCBA. In the small batch production of PCBA, the attention to PCB quality is not so high. In general, the PCB supply chain of many small PCBA manufacturers is very unstable, because they do not have stable PCB partners or cooperative PCB suppliers themselves are unstable in production quality. But AiPCBA has very strict production standards for PCB board, whether it is mass production or small batch production:

All our PCBs are produced based on UL and ISO certification standards.
All our normal specification PCBs are strictly obeying IPC-A-6011/6012 Class 2 latest version and IPC-A-600 Class 2 latest version.
All our PCBs are 100% electrically tested and 95% of the PCBs are tested by an AOI machine.
All our PCB production processes are environmentally friendly.
All our PCB manufacturing machines are highly precise and advanced, and AiPCBA keeps upgrading our facilities.

（3）Flexible High-Speed SMT Assembly Line. In traditional PCBA production, only mass production can reflect the advantages of the SMT line. But the traditional SMT line is not suitable for small batch production, because it is not flexible. Flexible High-Speed SMT Assembly is the ability to respond effectively to changes in the internal and external environment, known and unknown, at a reasonable price and speed. It is embodied in a PCB assembly production system of equipment, processing, products, logistics management, production organization management and other aspects. AiPCBA has three flexible capabilities to meet the requirements of small-batch PCB assembly:

Machining flexibility - Ability to coordinate machining steps by coordinating the tasks of multiple SMT machines in the production line.

Product flexibility - Ability to respond quickly to product changes within defined PCB specifications and permitted component types.

MHS(Material handling system) flexible - Due to the multi-functional mounter can accommodate a variety of components, can deal with disc/reel/tube and other packages of components, so it has a strong material transmission capacity.

Do you have any questions about the above-mentioned? Contact us now, we will reply to you soon.

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