Latest SMARTLine generation exhibiting at SMTA Show 2016

SMARTLine’s launch saw SolderStar make a breakthrough in internet-based technology, which enables ‘big data’ capture from reflow ovens for intelligent manufacturing requirements. The new interfaces provide the network link and software for streaming of live process data from the ovens on the production floor. It is also scalable, providing all the tools required allowing ‘big data’ capture from single test/evaluations lines to full smart factory scenarios.

Interest in the cost reductions that smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0 techniques bring to the electronic manufacturing arena is gaining considerable momentum. The Apex show provided the first platform to demonstrate these advances to the North American marketplace, as well as the company’s ability to share successful ‘Industry 4.0’ projects and trials that had already been carried out in Europe.

Managing Director, Mark Stansfield said: “The SMTA Expo will enable us to showcase the latest evolution in SmartLine, which has been developed to allow a number of flexible deployment methods, based upon differing customer requirements.”

Stansfield continued: “Offering the customer flexibility is key in the latest stage in the development of SmartLine. The system architecture enables deployment on locally hosted servers for high data throughput capabilities. This can either be as a standalone solution, or as part of a scalable network providing the potential for process visibility across multi-national organisations. This is achieved by using a mix of both local and cloud based server technologies which takes process traceability information to the next level.”

Additionally, the new package can be hosted in the ‘cloud’ to provide solutions based upon the ‘Software as a Service’ (Saas) model. This approach will prove a valuable asset for smaller assembly companies, with ‘big data’ capture and analysis currently considered the domain of only high-end manufacturing.

This SaaS approach is common in many other applications, and will make it possible for smaller size North American customers to gain the benefits of smart manufacturing data from their lines, without the need for investment or support of local server hardware to be present on-site.

This SMARTLine platform has also been enhanced to support the new ‘Solderstar-API’ functionality, Stansfield added. “This Application Programming Interface (API) allows third part management systems to receive data captured by the SMARTLine system for rapid integration solutions as Industry 4.0 gains further momentum.”

SMARTLine builds on Solderstar’s range of real-time process monitoring instruments and sensors. The system was developed to work with the Industry 4.0 / Internet Of Manufacturing concept, a principle where machines are connected through intelligent networks that can control each other autonomously to create a SMART factory.

Industry 4.0 factory captures information, across the whole manufacturing process so condition monitoring and fault diagnosis can be detected easily and a longer term goal of self-predicting algorithms can be used to foresee problems before they occur.

Stansfield added: “Apex marked the latest chapter in the introduction of our SMARTLine systems to the electronics manufacturing sector, it was encouraging to see such high interest levels in both our new products and our centrally hosted software tool.”