Cutting waste and supporting just-in-time operations to improve productivity by more than 10 percent

Supplying an array of services

Scanfil is a global manufacturing partner and systems supplier for the electronics industry. Established in Finland in 1976, Scanfil operates 10 production facilities with 3,500 employees in Europe, the United States and China. Scanfil and Siemens Digital Industries Software share a common vision and are partners in the digitalization journey.

Scanfil provides its customers with services ranging from product design, product manufacturing and material procurement to logistics solutions. It works with companies in fields such as advanced consumer applications, automation and safety, connectivity, energy and cleantech, medical technology and life sciences and the automotive industry.

Scanfil’s innovation strategy

Scanfil aims to become a world leader in agile manufacturing and electronics manufacturing services. It believes the key to staying ahead of the competition is using the latest technology to develop new capabilities.

To help Scanfil fulfill this mission, the company chose Siemens and its Opcenter™ software and Valor™ software. Using Opcenter enables Scanfil to improve resource utilization and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), enhance customer value and speed up time-to-market.

The company launched a global “Smart Operations” program in 2019. The program aimed to introduce automation technologies such as collaborative robots (cobots) and automated guided vehicles (AGVs) into its operations, allowing Scanfil to meet current and future demands. Additionally, the Scanfil team wanted to integrate new technologies into its existing systems and bridge any gaps in its automation pyramid. Once the Smart Operations program was complete, the Scanfil facility in Suzhou, China moved on to new challenges.

Most of the facility’s orders are high-mix, low-volume, with an average order numbering just 150 to 200 pieces. Flexibility is essential because it is necessary to make frequent production line changeovers. Additionally, many of Scanfil’s customers are in heavily regulated industries so they require a high level of traceability and routing control for their products. Scanfil wanted to build the infrastructure to meet that demand.

Scanfil understood that collecting and analyzing data in real time would be the key to developing the company’s smart operations. For that reason, the team decided to introduce digitalized solutions for the entire manufacturing process in the Suzhou facility by evolving the Smart Operations program into the Scanfil Dream Factory program, which it launched in 2022.

Managing the challenges of high-mix, low-volume production

There were several reasons Scanfil sought a holistic end-to-end manufacturing execution system (MES). The first challenge was some of Scanfil’s key equipment did not have a suitable interface for collecting data and they were not connected to the site’s Ethernet.

Another challenge was end-to-end traceability. Although Scanfil had an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, it did not have a robust traceability system that could control the entire manufacturing process from the customer order, component and raw-material levels to the finalized product. Finally, there was no reliable central digital system that could manage all defects and repairs, making it difficult for Scanfil to manage overall quality control during production.

Digital innovation

Scanfil understood that a robust, integrated MES would be key to the company’s digitalization program, critical to connecting all its physical assets. Siemens was an excellent partner for the Scanfil Dream Factory program as it provided a broad toolbox of efficiency tools, including manufacturing planning, which could be used to accelerate Scanfil’s new product introduction (NPI) service. Its advanced scheduling capabilities enabled the company to improve OEE.

Most importantly, Siemens offered a smart manufacturing for electronics solution that could connect all of Scanfil’s production processes and machines, from surface-mount technology (SMT) material kitting to end-of-line packing, enabling full traceability of both production processes and product configuration. It could be integrated with Scanfil’s ERP system to create a single, unified solution for the entire company and support its goals of achieving best-in-class electronics manufacturing.

Scanfil was confident Siemens was the right long-term partner for manufacturing digitalization and business intelligence because the companies shared a similar digitalization roadmap.

“Siemens’ digital thread portfolio is not the only element of our Scanfil Dream Factory, but they play a critical role in the big picture and in achieving our long-term vision for connected, transparent, proactive and optimized end-to-end supply chain and operations,” says Mikka Ahola, director of manufacturing technology at Scanfil.

Scanfil provides an excellent example of how effective a digital thread can be when applied to the electronics industry.

Shop floor solutions

Scanfil has implemented Siemens software throughout SMT production at its Suzhou plant, including equipment and material management. Shop floor internet of things (IoT) solutions connect the facility’s SMT machines directly, and then pass station and quality-related data from the SMT equipment to Opcenter for recording.

Valor and Opcenter are part of the Siemens Xcelerator business platform of software, hardware and services.

Operators use the MES user interface (UI) to control line settings, soldering paste, stencil, feeders and other related factors for SMT procedures, including product and process configurations.

In addition, Scanfil Suzhou uses the following Siemens solutions:

Opcenter plays a key role

Scanfil uses Opcenter Execution Electronics to model products and create a digital twin. They also use it to model workflows and process routing, resources, workforce and shop orders. The company uses Opcenter to collect and organize control data for the entire production process. Opcenter is used to return the production report information to Scanfil’s ERP system to create a closed-loop data flow for routing control, traceability and data collection.

Production data from the Opcenter database is used to enable Opcenter Intelligence Electronics to generate visual data reports with the status of manufacturing lines and machines. It also provides product, material lifecycle and production status tracing, and issues a quality analysis report. The immediate feedback, including break down of data by customer and product, enables continual improvement in Scanfil’s high-mix, low-mid-volume manufacturing environment.

Valor Process Preparation for manufacturing planning

Scanfil primarily uses Valor Process Preparation in product engineering and to generate an NPI job file that is imported into Opcenter for MES configuration. Scanfil’s ERP system automatically transfers the manufacturing shop order, product specifications, bill-of-materials (BOM) and equipment status information to the Opcenter manufacturing operations management (MOM) system.

“Siemens’ onsite service team is very familiar with the electronics industry and experienced in solution implementations, which made the project run smoothly,” says Harry Li, plant manager, Scanfil Suzhou. “They had the full support of the global R&D team and the local team. The training sessions helped our teams understand how the solution works. We had close cooperation that resulted in success.”

Planning for the future

As part of the Scanfil Dream Factory program, the team has already begun collecting data throughout the manufacturing process, using real-time key performance indicators (KPIs), visual dashboards, alerts and machine monitoring to improve productivity and leverage predictive analytics to control processes. In parallel, the company is rolling out Valor Process Preparation as its key NPI tool for increasing customer value and improving time-to-market.

Scanfil plans to implement prescriptive analytics to create multiple scenarios for decision-making, advanced planning scheduling (APS) and electronic device history records (eDHRs) as required by the medical device industry. It also intends to implement artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms to further improve OEE development. For example, transferring forecasts into simulated production scenarios would immediately inform managers how many shifts they need to run, and whether overtime would be needed to respond to changes in customer demand.

By implementing Opcenter APS Advanced Planning and Scheduling and Opcenter Scheduling SMT, Scanfil is bridging gaps in their production planning process. These tools will help them automate the planning process and reduce manual labor, which in turn will help them respond faster to changes in planning and customer requirements. With Opcenter APS and Opcenter Scheduling SMT, they will have the ability to react quickly to changes in material availability and customer needs, which will help improve their overall efficiency and productivity.

Scanfil is also discussing intra plant logistics (IPL) with Siemens. With the Opcenter Intra Plant Logistics (IPL) solution, material details would always be available for planning. It would enable production plans to be based on the material availability, preventing situations where the material needed has not arrived on time.

“The ultimate goal of the Scanfil Dream Factory program is adding more flexibility so we can better use our resources and increase productivity,” says Ahola. “This can lead to more efficient processes and a better product for our customers.”

Scanfil will replicate this process in its facilities in Poland and Estonia, and all its future electronic manufacturing sites. Harmonizing production sites will allow Scanfil to move production between the sites more effectively and support product transference and knowledge sharing.

Additional description - Scanfil - Realizing the benefits of digitalizing

Scanfil Suzhou has an end-to-end digital industrial software manufacturing operations management (MOM) solution with Siemens that enables a highly traceable and transparent production experience. Approximately 236 machines are digitally connected to the system, and 2,189 products (routings) are available. In 2022, the facility produced 2.67 million printed circuit board (PCB) panels, resulting in 10.5 million PCBs.

As a result, Scanfil Suzhou has improved material tracing, routing and maintenance and control, which has reduced production scrap costs, enhanced the speed and efficiency of line changing and improved production line machinery real-time data collection and analysis, enabling closed-loop quality control while improving overall production quality. It further reduced the average NPI time from 40 to 9 hours, enabling four to six NPIs in the same configuration.

“We have learned the importance of transparency with both our customers and suppliers,” says Christian Kesten, general manager at Scanfil Suzhou. “Even though we’re still in the middle of our digitalization process with Siemens, we have been successful in this area. Everyone who visits our factory feels confidence.”