AOI Product News – AOI & SPI process improvement

Process control and improvement requires detailed information about the total manufacturing process. Indentifying process issues at the earliest opportunity saves both time and money by avoiding costly investigation and rework. Omron have developed a range of tools to aid this process and includes our unique process improvement tool, QupNavi.

Process control and improvement requires detailed information about the total manufacturing process. Indentifying process issues at the earliest opportunity saves both time and money by avoiding costly investigation and rework. Omron have developed a range of tools to aid this process and includes our unique process improvement tool, QupNavi.  

It is generally agreed that post solder inspection is the starting point for a process control strategy, as it provides a holistic view of the production process. Omron AOI is able to identify many process and design related issues that, when addressed, can prevent issues from occurring in the future. Product reliability is dependant on the solder joint quality and this can be measured by Omron AOI. Post solder AOI also provides important feedback to the paste and placement inspection processes, helping to reduce failures and over rejects.  

SPI or solder paste inspection is also a vital tool for controlling the quality of the final product. No process is perfect and SPI is the first line of defence to achieving defect free production. The ability to detect print defects before placement or soldering, reduces rework time, waste and in turn production costs. Critical to managing SPI is in knowing what is acceptable and what is a REAL defect. It is for this reason that SPI should not be considered in isolation as AOI can provide that vital feedback to help control the paste process.    

Post placement AOI is also an important consideration providing you have the feedback after soldering as many placement issues are corrected in the oven. Of course post placement AOI can save considerable rework time by detecting polarity and incorrect part errors before soldering.  

QupNavi is a unique process improvement tool developed by Omron to help identify the TRUE causes of process failures. Statistics alone do not always tell the full story and can make identifying the true cause of a failure impossible. QupNavi works by collecting inspection data and images from post solder, post paste and post placement SPI & AOI. From the information and images collected, it is possible to see the whole process and discover the TRUE cause of the failure.

For more information on our process control tools, please contact us or your local distribution partner.