Siemens Industrial PCs have been leading trends over 30 years. As early as 1983, Siemens started combining standard PC technology with characteristics that fulfilled the demanding industrial requirements. And with its SIMATIC IPCs Siemens has since continued to set new milestones. With 4500 employees, the Karlsruhe site is the fifth largest location of the Siemens AG in Germany. It includes the Process Industries and Drives division, with process industry and process automation being the focus of the site.
Its modern manufacturing concept helps the Siemens AG in Karlsruhe to produce groundbreaking solutions and to set new standards on a regular basis. The production concept behind the fulfillment of individual customer requirements is based on modern manufacturing islands. In addition to the ability to cost-effectively produce smallest lot sizes, the standalone “island” production approach largely eliminates process-related waiting times and supports the manufacturer of highest quality products.
The basic prerequisite for flexible manufacturing islands is of course the flexibility of the individual production plants within an island. “We ensure this flexibility by using selective soldering systems and automation technology from SEHO” says Josef Kühn, a planner and designer in the Technology department at Siemens Karlsruhe.
The newest IPC manufacturing island at Siemens in Karlsruhe is used in a 2-3 shift operation scenario, production stoppage to allow the soldering nozzles to be cleaned manually was not an option. Instead, the SelectLine was fitted with SEHO-patented ultrasonic cleaning technology. “Our experience has shown that cyclical ultrasonic cleaning significantly improves the service life. With SelectLine soldering nozzles, we have an average service life of approximately 2 months – typically we would just get a few days with other comparable systems,” says Josef Kühn.
