Ersa INSIGHT BEYOND
Ersa looks to the future of Electronics Production
50 participants at the “Insight Beyond” technology and networking event
For its international technology and networking event, Ersa had put together an attractive bundle of topics under the title “Insight Beyond”: Nine presentations highlighted the megatrend of electrification from the perspective of electronics production, interspersed with hands-on parts directly on Ersa soldering systems in the Demo Center. For this condensed look into the future of electronics production, 50 participants from the DACH region as well as from Belgium, Denmark, Croatia, Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands traveled to Wertheim am Main.
Jürgen Friedrich, Technology Product Manager at Ersa, made the opening speech with the topic “Soldering technology for highly reliable electronics”. Even after 37 years with the company, the proven soldering expert regularly encounters new challenges for which innovative solutions must be found in the form of sustainable soldering technologies. With this background, Jürgen Friedrich overviewed current design challenges in the production of high-reliability assemblies and devices. These are anything but theoretical issues, on the contrary, they directly influence the later performance of the electronic assemblies. Michael Zahn, responsible for business development at Christian Koenen GmbH, took up the ball and spoke on “Future trends for high-precision stencil printing” about the increasing miniaturization in electronics production, which also places increasing demands on stencil printing. It is extremely important to be precise in this respect, as defects in electronics production can largely be traced back to stencil printing.
Michael Haas, Product Manager Reflow at Ersa, literally took the audience on a journey to a “new era of reflow soldering” – from the conference room to the Demo Center one floor below, where it was vividly demonstrated how highly efficient reflow soldering works without compromise and with regard to sustainable aspects. People stayed on site and switched from reflow to selective soldering technology. Tobias van Rossem, Area Sales Manager at Ersa with responsibility for international customers, unveiled the VERSAFLOW ONE X, which makes professional selective soldering accessible for everyone. The new model in the VERSAFLOW family combines all the advantages of its larger systems in terms of hard- and software – the absolute highlight being the x-variable soldering module, which ensures unique performance.
Back in the conference room, Dr.-Ing. Konstantinos Savvas of Kolb CLEANING TECHNOLOGY GmbH showed “The next step to the Perpetuum Cleaning Mobile” or how to achieve maximum cleanliness with zero water consumption and thus the evolution of the next cleaning stage.
A special highlight of the presentations was the topic “Digital Transformation – Tuning the burden into opportunities”, for which the business informatics specialist and economist Prof. Dr. Helmut Krcmar from the Technical University of Munich could be won. He vividly and eloquently demonstrated the importance of self-efficacy and linked it to the digital transformation, which has no panacea and requires building a “digitally proficient” workforce that sees digitization as an opportunity rather than a burden.
From the comprehensive approach, it was back down to the product level, where Julian Greß, Product Manager Soldering Tools at Ersa, presented the i-CON TRACE soldering station, the “missing link” for seamless documentation and thus continuous traceability in hand soldering. The two subsequent presentations highlighted the possibilities of automation – first, Stefan Huttelmaier from Schiller Automation presented sustainable key solutions for electronics production; Rob Raine from ASM Pacific Technology explained the approach of “open” automation and which steps in the analysis process in electronics production need to be considered to leverage automation potential.
Last, but not least, Ersa General Sales Manager Rainer Krauss led the participants on a “Company Tour” through the Ersa flow-cycle production facility, which had won the GEO Award in the “Factory of the Year” competition a few days earlier. At the end of the day, the audience had not only listened to nine presentations, but also stored a lot of know-how – valuable knowledge that will make numerous electronics productions at home and abroad even more effective and even more sustainable!