Can Tape & Reeling reduce production time and cost on your assembly line?

Minimizing production time and costs offers a competitive advantage in the mass production of products. Tape and reeling your electronic or mechanical parts can help you transition from manual to automatic placement during the assembly or surface mount technology (SMT) process, achieving faster throughput and saving you significant labor costs.

In particular, SMT is characteristically higher density, higher reliability and smaller size, which requires efficiencies in PCBA to ensure components are placed accurately on the board. Efficiencies that are better achieved by automatic placement than manual insertion.

But is this form of component packaging right for you? Here’s 6 questions you need to ask yourself to determine if tape and reeled product will save you time and money.

1. Is this a high volume or critical item?

Generally, high-demand, high-volume items show substantial gains when packaged on a reel. This is because setup can be performed faster, the pick-up from the spool is faster than from trays, and a reel holds a larger quantity of components than a tray.

2. Are you considering investing in new equipment to increase productivity? Wait! Read this first...

Building a new SMD line can easily exceed millions of dollars. A tray module for SMD alone can cost up to $100,000, including logistics costs, taxes and duties. Both of these scenarios require significant upfront capital investment. Why not first consider changing the format of your component packaging, migrating from packaging on trays or tubes to tape and reel? Your parts are delivered on spools to their point of use on the line, ready to be automatically placed on the board or assembled into a product. The efficiencies achieved may result in gains so substantial that it allows you to avoid making these expensive fixed asset purchases.

3. Would you like to reduce the number of production shifts and your labor costs?

If you package your components on reels you introduce increased efficiencies on your production line. This can positively impact your business in terms of the ability to reduce the number of shifts and consequently labor costs, or the number of machines required on the line. The key is to look at the ratio of time savings to production periods. This includes setup time, maintenance, gains in seconds per unit assembled, etc.

4. Would you like to eliminate manual handling and reduce scrappage?

In some cases, the components are in bulk and their assembly into the product is done through manual insertion by an assembly line worker. This increases the points of failure, can cause delays or stoppages on the line, hampers your ability to achieve lean manufacturing, and can even result in a percentage of products being scrapped, all of which eat into your bottom line. For these reasons, tape and reeling your parts and migrating these processes from manual to automated will result in immediate benefits.

5. Are the dimensions of your component greater than 4mm/0.016in and its weight less than 400g/14oz?

If yes, then it’s technically possible to mount it on a reel. Send us your drawings and we'll provide a quote.

6. Could you benefit from partnering with a local service provider, reduced lead times or freight charges?

Yes? Then consider EPS Global. We’re conveniently situated in 16 countries worldwide ensuring rapid delivery seamlessly to your point-of-use to help you meet your production deadlines.

We have the capability to automatically convert your electronic or mechanical components from bulk packaging loose in bags, on trays, or in tubes into carrier tape on reels, eliminating manual handling. We also manufacture our own carrier tape, which means we can accommodate your custom requirements, from the dimensions of the embossed cavity (length, width, depth, camber), to custom spacing for these pockets or sprocket holes.

You can find more information about our Tape & Reel service here, or request a free evaluation of your project now!