ECONOMIC, EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE - COMPETITIVE TODAY AND TOMORROW

Marconi Instruments, a medium-sized manufacturer of PCBs, recently inv ested in information management in their PCB assembly area. The automa ted i-Base system, which replaced manual data collection and analysis, started delivering real financial and operational benefits from insta llation. By automating data collection and analysis, information is no w more accurate, considerably less costly to produce and more appropri ate to the assembly environment. With a wide variety of PCBs assembled in small batches, the real-time process information gathered by i-Bas e ensures that the assembly process can be monitored and improved in r esponse to the test and repair data collected. The system in use today on the standard i-Base product marketed by Marconi Instruments. Syste m extensions and customization were undertaken to ensure that the syst em matched specific assembly process and information requirements. The se have largely been incorporated back into the i-Base product, to the benefit of other i-Base customers. Investigations are underway to ext end i-Base out of PCB assembly into other department within Marconi In struments.