Fujitsu’s Ltd’s main plant for the manufacture of telecommunications equipment, Oyama Works, recently implemented a completely automated printed circuit board production line able to cope with small lot production. All processes from supply of the parts to die-changing assembly and inspection are performed through this auomated line, a world first, Fujitsu claims. Oyama makes trunk transmission equipment for communications systems such as ISDN; about 88% of Fujitsu’s communications equipment is made at Oyama, and the company plans to expand its range of products to include media that combine speech, data and image such as high definition television, and to optical subscriber transmission systems. The new manufacturing system is called Manufacturing in the Warehouse under which the warehouse and distribution system are integrated into the workstation. The line is operating on the basis of just one lot per product and yet has been able to automate the process and reduce lead time to a minimum. Fujitsu’s success in this proejct has been due in part to a subsidiary called Fujitsu CadTech which was set up in 1986 for the specific purpose of developing computer-integrated manufacturing systems for making of communciations equipment. Robots are used for automatic picking of an average of 100 parts for products on a printed circuit board. Automated equipment undertakes die-changing on the basis of recognition of bar-codes, and the plant turns out 3,000 printed circuit boards a week.
