TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Originally Printed in the June 2002 Issue of SMT
Magazine
SMT PERSPECTIVES COLUMN
The industry has seen an emergence of alliances and
partnerships among vendors with varied products and core competencies.
Recent vendor alliances and partnerships have evolved beyond reseller
agreements, offering the
customer a singular solution with greater capability and value than the
mere sum of its parts.
As
with most industry trends, customer demand drives change. Electronics
assembly equipment technology is maturing, but market conditions
continue demanding greater productivity and value from each investment
made within the factory. Productivity improvements are not made as
easily with investments in new machine technology as they once were.
Customers are turning to their suppliers for improved capability,
connectivity and information management among existing factory assets;
however, they also want the entire solution unified and simplified.
Industry vendors have recognized this customer demand and built the
concepts for these alliances upon business, technical and market
premises.
Perhaps the greatest value of an alliance comes from multiple vendors
focusing on their core competencies and delivering an overall solution
constructed of high-value components. In the past, vendors would attempt
to engineer, market and install multiple machine types as well as
proprietary software systems. Unfortunately, the scope of this effort
simply is too great, and the result was a collection of offerings that
often were less than best-in-class. Another method was to collect
systems from multiple vendors perceived as best-in-class, put them
together and sell them as a unified solution. This method sometimes
failed because, in the absence of a close technical and deployment
relationship between the companies, the offering was not truly
integrated. However, closely aligned vendors, each working on the
technology in which they are best qualified, have the highest potential
to deliver a fully integrated solution in which each component is truly
best-in-class.
Technical issues also have driven the formation of vendor alliances. The
productivity improvements and full integration of varied systems into
one solution largely involves software connectivity. To this end,
software vendors having the capability and breadth of product to handle
this information management have become major participants in alliances.
These vendors are tasked with delivering visibility and optimum
connectivity not only within the line but also to the factory and
manufacturing enterprise.
Alliances offer business advantages for vendors as well as customers.
Simplified sales, procurement, deployment and even daily system use are
possible in a truly integrated solution.
INTEGRATED SOLUTION BENEFITS
For the first time, the customer is afforded a coherent manufacturing
solution rather than a collection of technology components to solve the
process, capacity or other problems facing their business. Rather than
purchasing individual, disconnected systems to solve point problems, the
customer now can procure a single solution with a defined capability.
These solutions also leverage information more effectively than in the
past. The customer is no longer burdened with several machine-specific
software solutions for programming, monitoring, etc. Information
management from integrated solutions extends up to the ERP level,
through operations and management, and out to the production floor and
into the machinery. This vertical integration from a management
visibility level, to the process engineering office, and into the line
is possible when the machinery and the software are communicating on a
platform created in a multi-vendor environment. The customer can
leverage the information to make the lines, factory office operations
and management more productive.
Customers also are afforded key business advantages through selecting
integrated offerings from multiple aligned vendors. These offerings
introduce the concept of plug-and-play capability. Rather than selecting
individual machines and software systems to solve point problems and
inferring the combined affect on productivity, the customer now selects
one solution that is essentially a "product engine." A single line and
software offering with specifically defined capability. Procurement,
deployment and daily use of this line are simplified as compared to
assembling individual products to deliver similar capability. When more
capability is required, an additional line is simply "plugged in" to the
factory. The capacity is increased and the information connectivity
extends to the new line and communicates with the factory information
backbone. Enter the easily scalable manufacturing environment.
At the user level, integrated solutions from aligned vendors can even
help training and quality. Operators learn a single user interface
convention, and have access to information across all machinery to
enable them to do their jobs more efficiently. It is only through close
cooperation among machine and software vendors that this is possible.
CONCLUSION
The concept of truly integrated offerings from multiple aligned vendors
is relatively new. Eventually, as these offerings are adopted in the
market, customers will decide the future of the concept. If the
simplicity and connectivity gains of such solutions truly deliver the
increased productivity the market demands, the industry should see a
continuation of this trend toward more vendor alliances and
partnerships.
Author Information:
Jason Spera, Chief Executive Officer
Aegis Industrial Software Corporation
220 Gibraltar Road, Suite 100
Horsham, PA 19044