Processing and Assembly

The processing & assembly functions in manufacturing are the basic operations that transform raw materials & add value to them. Let us consider some of the changes that are likely to occur in processing and assembly technology.

Machining is likely to remain a significant process in manufacturing. Machining operations of the future shall likely be carried out at speeds substantially greater than today. Enhance in speed shall substantially improve productivity in machining operations. Advances in cutting tool materials & machine tool technology shall make these increases possible. The high cutting speeds shall generate chips at a high rate, and beneath-the-floor systems are likely to become prevalent as a means of solving the chip disposal problem.

Additionally to machining, the use of near net shape processes shall grow in importance. Near net shape processes are those which attempt to produce the final shape of the part in single step or a limited number of steps. Their objectives & advantages include dropped off waste in the form of chips or other scrap material, dropped off manufacturing cost and decreased number of operations required to form the part.

At last, the growth of microelectronics technology has targeted the development of specialized chemical, optical, & physical processing methods to form large scale integrated (LSI) and extremely large scale integrated (VLSI) circuits on miniature silicon chips. These procedures include refined chemical etching, photolithography techniques, diffusion, ion implementation, and electron beam etching. This is anticipated that some of these processing technologies shall find many industrial applications beyond microelectronics.

In the assembly area, some biggest productivity improvements are expected to come from a superior awareness of the impact of product design on assembly methodology. By designing parts for ease of automatic assembly, the number of assembly steps and equivalent costs shall be reduced. Total product cost may be minimized by attaining an optimum balance among the component costs & assembly costs.