Its Grid system sends each circuit board through the steps it needs, helping different designs run together.
CircuitHub is expanding capacity at its Massachusetts electronics factory fivefold, as demand exceeds available production capacity, ASSEMBLY Magazine reports. The operation targets high-mix, low-volume work: many board designs made in relatively small quantities.
The Grid uses levitating movers to carry individual printed circuit boards between specialized robots. Those robots print solder paste, place components, solder connections, and inspect boards, according to ASSEMBLY.
Artificial intelligence coordinates the movement. Each board can take its own route through the factory, so orders with different designs can run at the same time. CircuitHub says this setup avoids changeovers between designs, which are the equipment and process adjustments needed when production switches from one board design to another.
The company says one unit each of 100 different designs can move through the system as easily as 100 units of one design. That makes board-level routing useful for factories handling varied orders instead of concentrating on one design at a time.
CircuitHub says the Massachusetts operation has shipped more than 2.2 million boards, placed more than 150 million components, and served more than 26,000 engineers. It also says the factory can build and ship boards in an average of four days, compared with nine days for a typical quick-turn shop in China, at comparable prices.
Those timing and price figures are company claims reported by ASSEMBLY, not independent comparisons in the report. The report also does not explain what limits the fivefold expansion or how much current output uses the Grid system.
For plant managers, the next useful question is whether those speed and cost claims hold as capacity grows.