Over the past year, we have invested heavily in a further automation of our production. In addition to a through-hole placement machine, the first real robot has found its way to our production.
Production in China is not required. In order to follow the rapidly evolving market, Western European manufacturers of machines and appliances have different needs and challenges. E.D.&A. thinks ahead and explains how they do this.
The Omron TM5-900 CoBot is used to relieve our operators of certain pick-and-place operations and other time-consuming, repetitive tasks. In this way we can automate more flexibly.
Our company building in Kalmthout will be doubled in surface area by the end of 2020/early 2021. This is necessary to be able to continue to grow and to create enough space for all our (new) colleagues and machines. At the moment the works are at a standstill due to the annual construction holidays, but everything will start again at the beginning of August.
As part of our vision on thorough quality control, we have invested in an additional 3D AOI. This new machine is placed at the end of the THT(Through Hole Technology) line.
Even in these strange times, we at E.D.&A. don't sit still. For example, our premises will be doubled in surface area to 8,000 m² by the end of March 2021. This is necessary to manage our growth and to create enough space for all our (new) colleagues and additional electronics production lines that will be delivered in April next year.
We see it as our social responsibility to involve social enterprises for customised work. On the one hand, the social enterprises carry out tasks for us at their own workplace, and on the other hand, their people work for us on site. In the latter case, they come to our location in Kalmthout every day, just like other E.D.&A. employees.
This month E.D.&A. celebrates its 40th anniversary. 'A big party for E.D.&A.'s fortieth anniversary is not yet on the program in view of the corona measures, but there is reason enough to celebrate', echoes Gert D'Handschotter, owner and managing director at E.D.&A. Even in these strange times, we at E.D.&A. did not sit still. Our company building was doubled in size to 8.000 m². This was necessary to steer our growth in the right direction and to create sufficient space for all our (new) colleagues and additional machine lines.
The inline laser marker now applies the unique serial number to the PCB. The available capacity at our SMD machines is eagerly used for placing additional SMD components.
Not only powerful car manufacturers are experiencing shortages of electronic components. We, too, feel that the strong upswing in the market is increasing the scarcity in the components market.
We are now cautiously positive regarding the availability of electronics components. Certain components are delivered to us earlier than anticipated, but in addition, there are still components that are very difficult to obtain! For instance, we feel that power components -which are also widely used for electric cars or charging stations- are hard to get hold of and also still have very long delivery times.
Our Continuous Improvement Team consisting of operators, manufacturing engineers and production management continues to focus on reducing lead times. The production process was further mapped and the first actions regarding the running times of various machines are already yielding results.
More and more companies are choosing to bring back production and development from low-wage countries. E.D.&A. took this reshoring step in 2012. Now ten years later, this does certainly not do any harm to us as a Belgian electronics manufacturer. Our customers need flexibility, speed and quality, and so do we.
The downside of digitisation and the connection machines and devices to the internet is that they become more vulnerable to cyber attacks and other risks. Cyber security will demand more and more attention from both electronics developers (like us) and machine and appliance constructors (like you) in the coming years. What is E.D.&A.'s role in cybersecurity?
