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© Enics
Electronics Production |

Enics is gearing up in Sweden

EMS provider Enics is adding some manufacturing muscles at its production unit in Västerås, Sweden in order to step up to the competition from abroad.

The electronics manufacturer’s facility in Västerås has undergone quite the facelift with the end goal of making electronics manufacturing more attractive in Sweden. Following the closure of the company’s unit in Malmö in southern Sweden the Enics shifted its focus towards its manufacturing facility in Västerås. The goal with this new focus was to make sure that the facility could meet future demands in electronics manufacturing and to be able to compete not just in Sweden, but also outside the country. The push has resulted in several new machines for the unit, adding some much needed muscles to the facility. Evertiq reached out to Thomas Larsson, sales manager for the company, as it was currently in the midst of testing out new collaborative robots for the plant. “This is party to replace some manual assembly, and partly to add automatic resting for some products. This is instead of having an employee lifting the products in and out of the test fixture, Thomas Larsson explains. The idea behind the addition is just as one might think, to increase the degree of automation and to improve current production processes. And speaking of production processes, some new strides have been made. Today the Västerås-unit is running three SMT lines, once of these is a brand new SMD SIPLACE SX2 line, equipped with a total of six pick-and-place units, Thomas tells Evertiq. The third lines has also allowed the company to do something that was previously simply not possible at the facility. “We previously talked about having two types of sites within Enics; one that runs low volume and high mix, and then sites in Asia and Eastern Europe that take on high volumes. This line however means that we can take on slightly higher volumes, even in Sweden.” According to Thomas, the speed has basically doubled through the new SMT line, thereby doubling the daily capacity. The extensive development of the Västerås plant has been described as a "powerpush" where the production in Eastern Europe and Asia is complemented by production alternatives in Sweden. “Designs today are made for automatic manufacturing in order to be able to place as many components in SMT as possible. The opportunity for us – with modern circuit board design – is that we can manufacture at almost the same prices as anywhere else like Eastern Europe or China” Currently the EMS provider has about 350 employees at the facility in Västerås, and there are no plans to change to composition of the workforce. There is however plans to sharpen the skills of its employees. Other improvement going forward might also include a layout change of the factory setup. “By working with automation, LEAN and 5S we can actually make more room in the existing factory. And with an SMT line that produces faster, we can have faster throughput time and do not need as much intermediate storage. In short, we can use the surface in a much smarter way,” Thomas Larsson.

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March 28 2024 10:16 am V22.4.20-1
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