Articles

A new Conformal Coating line introduced

The main advantage of Conformal Coating is significantly improved resistance against effects of the surrounding environment. Coated electronic assemblies can be used in demanding environmental conditions and are far better protected against temperature changes, humidity, condensation, dust particles, chemicals and mechanical damage.

Coated PCB’s also offer the advantage of easily recognized unauthorised interventions on the device, even illegal copying. The coating also protects the solder joints from:

  • electric material migration (tin whisker effect),
  • oxidation, and
  • extends the life of the electronic assemblies.

The Conformal Coating line is aligned with ATech’s sustainability principles.

ATech one of the Europe’s hidden corporate champions

As a specialist in the development and manufacture of electronics with a long tradition, who regularly receives awards for business performance, innovation and social responsibility, ATech was also presented at this year’s conference Meeting of businessmen and researchers, which was organized by the I3SME project’s partner, TechnoCenter at the University of Maribor, and took place on 17th January 2011 at the Maribor Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics,

Besides the presentation of nine Slovenian hidden corporate champions, the Conference also announced the best researcher of the last year according to the economy, Prof. Dr. Aleksandra Lobnik from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maribor, however, there have also been many other interesting activities, from the round table on the impact and integration of the University in economic development of the local and wider region, through the presentation of the most notable research findings, and all to the flaboratories’ and institutes’ fair.

ATech amongst the most innovative Slovenian enterprises for the third time in a row

As officially one of the best, ATech will also present itself at this year’s Central National Exhibition of Innovative Ideas, Innovations, Inventions and Innovative Companies which will take place at the 4th Slovenian Innovation Forum on the 1st and 2nd of December 2009 at Gospodarsko razstavišče, Ljubljana.

ATech will introduce its innovation G2RCU, a versatile full-feature GSM/GPRS unit with an industrial power supply that allows remote control and maintenance of industrial and commercial automation systems, data logging, elaboration and transmission. A remote control system realised on the G2RCU can be upgraded with ATech’s proprietary SiERA technology that allows users to have the G2RCU functionalities available through a web application. Access to the internet alone allows the running of remote control systems, collecting data and transferring it to information systems and organizing advanced maintenance systems.

About 100 entries applied this year and were judged by the expert committee consisting of 61 eminent Slovenian experts from the fields of engineering, business sciences, patent experts, and Slovenian innovation representatives, as well as four foreign consultants.

Master agreement between ATech and BSH corporation

The agreement now makes ATech the development supplier for all companies within the BSH international group of companies whose development and production network consists of 42 factories in 13 countries and around 40,000 employees, generating 8.76 billion euros of annual revenue. At this important achievement of the company, which began with an intensive introduction of lean production methods in 2005, Davor Jakulin, ATech CEO, points out: “The key to the space of opportunities, which this large industrial system can offer, ensured us outstanding innovations of our development engineers in the past. Now it offers us another chance – to take our organization to business excellence and to truly become a reference on a worldwide scale. “

An important aspect of a cooperation is the clause of the master agreement, that bounds ATech as a supplier to respect the UNGC organizational principles in the field of children’s rights (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) and also coincides with ATech’s efforts for a sustainable development, pursued by its membership in the Slovenian UNGC Organization.

FUMIS Earns ATech a Gold Award

ATech has again proved its creativity and innovativeness by participating at another tender for innovations thus receiving another important recognition. The recognition award was given for the innovation developed by ATech’s R&D engineer from the group SmartMove, Vojko Blažič and his co-workers.

ATech, with the awarded FUMIS OXY confirms Slovenia among the most ecologic orientated countries in the world, which develop and promote technologies for the use of renewable energy sources.

FUMIS OXY was designed to control high-performance boilers including multiple boiler synchronized operation (cascade or cluster). The accurate and stable combustion based on fuzzy logic control and lambda probe oxygen content measurement results in high efficiency and low emissions in real-life operation.

ATech Again Among the 101 Best Employers

The announcement of the 21 finalists – seven finalists in the small enterprise category, seven in the medium-sized enterprise category, the latter including ATech, and seven in the large enterprise category will take place next Saturday, 24 January 2009.  The solemn nomination of the winners in the three categories will take place in Ljubljana, on 5 January 2009.

ATech’s Progress in Production Automation – Upgrade of ERP System with Finite Scheduling

Finite scheduling is a detailed scheduling strategy that is classified right after strategic and operative level and concerns capacity planning for shorter periods of time. Today’s environment is changing rapidly. Leave of absence from work because of illness, new and very urgent orders, delays in material supplies, equipment damage, slower or faster order fulfilments, etc. are all presumptions that are subject to daily changes, and as such significantly influence short-term capacity planning.

Integration of finite planning into ERP system is rare in the field of production

Finite scheduling is usually performed by a separate information system. By this integration, ATech avoided one of the most delicate points – synchronisation of two systems thus gaining both on time and quality level of system introduction. Finite scheduling helped ATech gain in terms of responsiveness to the parameter changing that affect production planning as it takes into account actual resources available (available workforce and workplaces, workers’ qualifications to perform certain operations, time schedule and evenly occupied workplaces). Before the beginning of each shift, based on these data the system calculates detailed work plan by operations which is than assigned to each worker. Preset priorities are taken into account, such as date of delivery, work order of precedence and building in of semimanufactures as well as current limitations. At the beginning of the shift, the worker logs into MES (Manufacturing Execution System) application. The system shows the operations that have to be performed in a certain order of precedence. The worker, on the other hand, simultaneously inserts into the system data related to the work done (number of manufactured pieces).

  

The role of GOSoft information system

For finite scheduling ATech uses the information system GOSoft (www.goinfo.si) which performs the scheduling on MRP II principle, whereas for shorter periods it performs finite scheduling (CRP) that include Heller-Logemann algorithm together with other best practices for determining order of precedence and priority operations.

The application enables graphic and tabular representations of the plan, even among internet browsers independently of the location or operational system. The same plan is available to the purchasing as well as sales departments thus shortening the communication line and making the transfer of information much easier among different departments within the company. All of these significantly influence the quality of company’s relations with its clients as the time of response is almost immediate.

Key advantages of the CRP for ATech are:
1. Time savings at daily capacity planning;
2. Higher quality daily planning;
3. Time savings for department managers due to faster and more optimal workforce allocation;
4. Time savings for workers due to the faster allocation to the workplaces;
5. More optimal allocation of workers to the workplaces based on their skills and qualifications;
6. Optimization of labour time, workplaces and equipment by taking into account key priorities (time of delivery);
7. Better communication.