R.H. Technologies achieves 80 percent downtime reduction using Mentor's Valor MSS software for end-to-end PCBA manufacturing

2012 IPC-APEX Exhibition, WILSONVILLE, USA: Mentor Graphics Corp. announced the successful adoption by R.H. Technologies, a global contract manufacturer for advanced electronics, of the Mentor comprehensive Valor MSS (Manufacturing Systems Solution) suite for printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) manufacturing.

R.H. Technologies provides world-class turnkey services for electronic production assemblies and systems for customers in the industrial, telecommunications, security and medical markets. They sought a single-source, integrated, end-to-end technology to automate its entire manufacturing process and deployed the Mentor Graphics Valor MSS suite.

R.H. Technologies realized an 80 percent reduction in machine downtime for material setup and verification with 50 percent fewer operators using the Valor MSS suite, the industry’s only automated and scalable platform comprised of robust software tools for each stage of the PCBA new product introduction (NPI)-through-manufacturing process. ERP vendors cannot provide a fully integrated end-to-end solution from a single data source, which is a critical requirement for R.H. Technologies. The Valor MSS suite extracts and adapts ERP system data, providing a single data source to monitor activities from initial order entry to the final shipment of products.

“Valor MSS is our ‘one source of truth,’ providing a single integrated end-to-end solution throughout the entire manufacturing process,” stated Michael Jacob, R.H. Technologies CIO and CTO. “By providing automatic and reliable data collection from all points in the manufacturing flow, Valor MSS delivers full traceability and process control for maximum performance at the lowest unit cost.”

Using the materials traceability data in the Valor MSS platform, R.H. Technologies is more efficiently managing quality issues by avoiding rework of unaffected boards while meeting customer delivery commitments and saving thousands of dollars per occurrence. Comprehensive visibility of detailed operational metrics, such as feeders that result in component loss and require repair, has reduced material loss by three percent and has improved machine efficiency by reducing pickup errors.

The Valor MSS suite is designed to optimize manufacturers in the design, planning, monitoring, control, scheduling, box build, traceability, test, and rework processes. The Valor MSS Foundation serves as the central hub to manage and leverage manufacturing operational data. This centralization eliminates data redundancy and configuration errors, establishing the backbone for process flow interoperability.

A major feature in the new Valor MSS platform is a dramatically improved user interface for the shop floor workers. The intuitive, easy-to-use interface improves productivity and minimizes the time to train new users. Process preparation and production planning are integrated with the manufacturing floor through easier visualization of order status by operators, including the full integration of document delivery. The Valor MSS product also drastically reduces the cost of ownership for customers via simplified packaging and a new licensing platform to minimize administrative overhead.

“Using Valor MSS, the information flow is now fluent and errorless at all points in our manufacturing process,” stated Arnon Sabti, engineering manager at R.H. Technologies. “I am using the same tool for DFM, NPI and process preparation – everything is linked to the manufacturing process to save time and eliminate human errors.”

The Valor MSS Quality Management tool provides automatic data collection from R.H. Technologies’ Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) machines, eliminating manual data collection while improving data integrity, saving the company thousands of dollars a month. The Valor MSS Business Intelligence platform sends automatic alerts when systematic problems occur, flagging real and “false failures” found during inspection and test operations. The data analysis feature helps R.H. find the root cause of these failures immediately, reducing defects caused by SMT process failures by 20%, and a 5 percent reduction in “false failures.”

“Our comprehensive Valor MSS solution reinforces Mentor’s reputation as the PCB design-through-manufacturing market leader,” stated Dan Hoz, GM of the Valor division of Mentor Graphics. “We invested time and resources to understand how our customers and operators interact with our software, using this feedback to improve our new Valor MSS platform – resulting in a superior user experience.”