LB SMT Services has a new home

James Long

Yes.....we decided to jump off the deep end and build our own site.

If your interested in having SMT boards assembled......swing by.

This may be a shameless plug, but we hope offering SMT assembly will help Parallax to sell more surface mount parts.

www.lil-brother.com

Hope everyone likes it.....although it is not totally finished....it is coming along nicely.

James L

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James L

Partner/Designer
Lil Brother LLC (SMT Assembly Services)

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

James,

This is from your website (nice design, BTW!): "Any parts left over that are considered small quantities will be packaged with your assembled boards. Otherwise they could be lost in inventory." [noparse][[/noparse]emphasis mine]

Oookay, that's one way of dealing with it. But, in my experience, any hint of inventory problems is not the kind of thing a customer wants to see. As a former user of SMT assembly services, I can tell you that inventory issues with my provider were my biggest headache by far. If parts have any chance at all of getting "lost in inventory", you really need to take a hard look at your parts management system. It has to be 100% accurate and squeaky clean. Clients rely on the fact that their parts are kept secure and accurately accounted for — in other words, treated like precious jewels. And, yes, you will need to buy adequate insurance to cover any losses from fire, theft, etc., of parts tendered to your custody. Each customer's components need to be kept in a sealed container, and an accounting should be made (that means written down with dates and times) for all parts going in and coming out. Parts falling off the machine (yes, there will be some) and sacrificed for tape leaders need to be accounted for as well, with this possibility and an estimated loss rate spelled out in advance. With each order shipped, you need to provide a statement showing how many of each part were used, how many were scrapped, and how many remain. From a customer's standpoint, losing track of components is almost as bad as cold solder joints. But do inventory right, and you will be added to your clients' Christmas lists!

I'm not trying to scare you, and — of course! — I wish you the best of succes in your business! But this is one matter whose careful attention your customers will both demand and appreciate.

A good accounting system is a must. I use MYOB, which has decent inventory accounting for manufacturing. It takes some time to set up, but I think it would satisfy your needs. It will help you if all your customers can provide a bill of materials in a uniform format. Perhaps a web form that they can fill out, along with an Excel template for those that have Excel, would help. Getting all this set up before your P&P machine arrives and in advance of your first job will save you enormous headaches down the road.

-Phil

Post Edited (Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)) : 3/16/2008 5:41:10 AM GMT

James Long

Phil,

The inventory is monitored by a custom database I had built. It does everything I need for business.(except for the website currently).

I'm a perfectionist, which goes well with what we are working toward. (As you can tell by the website)

We will keep an absolutely clean environment and absolute part counts. It is what is required for doing this type of work. Anything less is unacceptable.

I will change our excuse to why we will not want to keep tapes with 10 parts left.

I understand the inventory tips, and I appreciate your view on the situation.

We do not have the leader problem, we have feeders that do not require leaders, so no loss there. Parts falling off the machine and during reflow (bottom side) yes...I think everyone has that problem.

We just do not wish to keep tapes with 10 passives left that are 0201's. Big parts are not a problem. Basically....if the tape is off the reel.....the customer is going to get it back. Pretty easy rule.

Small runs will get their cut tapes back.... I personally don't see any of the small run customers keeping any stock with us....it is just not feasible.

We will also carry some passives for customers to have placed, without having to supply them. The list has not been totally compiled as of yet.

Thanks for the tips.......I do appreciate them.

James L

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James L

Partner/Designer
Lil Brother LLC (SMT Assembly Services)

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

James,

Thanks for the followup. I only wish my former provider had been as diligent. And leaderless component feeding? Wow!

-Phil

James Long

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) said...
James,

Thanks for the followup. I only wish my former provider had been as diligent. And leaderless component feeding? Wow!

-Phil

Phil,

The feeders·are pretty cool.....the feeding system is actually just behind where the part is picked. We had special reusable cover strip leaders made for the cover takeup.

Still....even with all of that, there will always be a little loss, as with any kind of SMT assembly.

James L

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James L

Partner/Designer
Lil Brother LLC (SMT Assembly Services)