Speedboard continues expansion drive

Citation

(1999), "Speedboard continues expansion drive", Circuit World, Vol. 25 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/cw.1999.21725dab.022

Speedboard continues expansion drive

Speedboard continues expansion drive

Keywords: Speedboard, Drilling, Printed circuit boards

Speedboard Ltd continues its expansion with a £200K investment in the board fabrication area to provide additional flexible drilling facilities.

Company director, Glyn Thurston, selected the twin headed Pluritec drill to maximise utilisation and provide "lights out" operation. Two feeder trolleys, each carrying up to 72 24'' * 24'' panels, keep the machine supplied while it drills 9,000 holes per hour. Boards can be of different types and sizes with the appropriate drilling program for each loaded automatically.

"Operator attention is absolutely minimal", says Thurston. "The machine self-loads, verifies that it has the correct drill for each hole with a laser checking mechanism, and can alert the operator if there is an error. For overnight operations, it can even dial the operator on standby at home".

To add to the flexibility of the new machine, the two heads can be drilling different jobs simultaneously. "It improves productivity and allows us to operate three shifts with no additional variable costs, and that means we can free up an operator for other duties while drilling progresses", explains Thurston.

With a firm view on growth, Speedboard has expansion area floorspace in its new fabrication plant. It's no coincidence that the Pluritec drill controller also has expansion capability -it can operate up to five heads simultaneously. "Today the average batch size is 60 to 80 panels and bigger batches are less frequent now that surface mount has reduced the size of each board and increased the number of boards per panel", says Thurston. "But we have planned for future expansion in this investment", he adds.

Details from Richard Watson, Speedboard Limited, Vansittart Industrial Estate, Arthur Road, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 1SE, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 1753 746700; Fax: +44 (0) 1753 830726; E-mail: sales@speedboard.co.uk