ISP Request Leads to $2 Million Cost Reduction in Test Process

CUSTOMER PROFILE

A Major North American electronics manufacturer of industrial and consumer automation products, needed to expand their production test operations.

With more than 20 years of experience in electronics manufacturing, this customer has well-established test operations which have made them the quality product leader in their industry.

THE CHALLENGE

The company needed to improve their on-board programming process. As their boards became smaller and more advanced, panel sizes were becoming larger with more devices to program on each panel.

Their current programming process was a separate step from ICT, yet, it was the bottleneck in their production process.

To meet the TAKT time requirements of their new products, additional programming stations and operators would be needed, increasing costs and consuming valuable production floor space.

THE GOAL

The customer wanted a better stand-alone programming solution that could program more parts in parallel at faster speeds than their current solution. The requirements were the following:

THE SOLUTION

CheckSum evaluated the customer’s test and programming requirements.

Leveraging our Parallel Test capabilities, CheckSum offered a solution combining ICT and on-board programming that could test and program substantially faster than the customer’s current solutions.

Although the customer was happy with their current ICT platform and had not considered a change, the opportunity for improvement was very compelling. CheckSum understood the customer’s hesitation to risk making change to their ICT process. An on-site evaluation period was agreed on to prove out the promised test and programing times. This allowed the customer a no-risk opportunity to evaluate the CheckSum solution.

THE RESULTS

The CheckSum Parallel Test Benefits: Upon completion of the on-site evaluation, the customer approved the CheckSum Parallel Test solution.

CheckSum performed both the Test and Programming operations, with one test system, faster than their previous platform could perform just the ICT process. The customer was able to eliminate the second step completely, greatly reducing their total test time, with less floor space and with fewer operators.

The customer went on to buy six CheckSum test systems in the next 12 months and achieved significant cost savings, with an improved process compared to their old multi-step solution. The customer’s management stated that while they loved their old ICT platform and had no problem with it at all, they would never buy another one. The CheckSum test station exceeded their expectations in every way. Their operators liked the ease of use, their management was happy with the reduced cost, and the plant manager was able to better utilize the people and floor space no longer needed with the new process.

Find out more about CheckSum's test solutions: