2.3 Feeders, Splicing & Replenishment

2.3.1 Feeder Maintenance: Protecting the Tooling

Feeder failures often masquerade as placement or vision problems. A robust maintenance routine prevents major downtime.

Routine Cleaning: Regularly blow out component pocket debris, dust, and adhesive residue from the feeder mechanism. Check sensor flags and verify the cover-tape path.
Tension and Pitch Calibration: Feeder pitch settings must precisely match the component tape. Incorrect pitch leads to component movement or creeping offsets that cause random vision misses and retries.
Tooling Traceability: Feeders must be treated as traceable assets. Each unit should have a unique ID, a visible last PM date, and be logged with maintenance notes.
Permanent Banks: Permanent feeder banks must be maintained for high-runner passives (set by the program in Chapter 2.2) to prevent unnecessary changes during product switchovers.

Inconsistent cover-tape peeling is the direct cause of random component miss-picks.

Peel Force and Angle: The feeder must maintain a smooth, consistent peel angle and force. Noisy or jerky peeling introduces instability, causing the component to jostle in the pocket just before pickup. Worn peel rollers or dirty tracks must be immediately replaced.
Leader/Trailer Management: Reels must have adequate leaders (empty tape at the start) and a few empty pockets at the tail for clean splicing. Rejecting reels without proper leaders prevents manual, high-risk hand-threading mid-run.
Pocket Integrity: If components exhibit consistent sticking, the component pocket is either rough or contaminated. The reel should be quarantined, and a Supplier Non-Conformance Report (NCR) raised.

The splicing process must be early, clean, and invisible to the machine head.

Splicing Timing: An MES alarm must be set at a threshold of N parts remaining (e.g., 200 – 500 parts), calculated based on machine consumption rate, to ensure splicing occurs before starvation.
Splicing Technique: Only approved splicing tools and vendor-specific tape/clips should be used. The splice must be thin and the sprocket holes aligned perfectly. Adhesive stacking under the pick-up line must be avoided. 3. Verification: After every splice, the feeder must run 20 – 50 dry picks, or the first subsequent placements must be monitored closely for miss/retry spikes.

Replenishment must be automated and proactive to eliminate costly starvation time.

Automated Tracking: The MES must track consumption by scanning the Reel/Tray ID to the Feeder ID and linking it to the Work Order. This tracks the component count, monitors remaining floor life (for Moisture Sensitive Devices, MSD), and flags shortages.
Line-Side Supermarket: Spare, pre-threaded feeders for the highest-consumption parts must be staged on dedicated kitting carts or exchange trolleys. The entire feeder is swapped at the machine, allowing the splicing to be performed in the background, maximizing machine availability.
Mirrored Maps: For dual-lane or tandem lines, feeder maps must be mirrored to minimize operator thinking time and kitting error risk during rapid swaps.
Dashboard Monitoring: The key operational metrics to track are Starvation Events per Shift (goal: zero) and Changeover Minutes consumed by feeder work (an OEE measure).

Area	Non-Negotiable Requirement
Feeder Care	PM schedule maintained; pitch/tension verified; feeder assigned to Permanent Bank if high-runner.
Splicing	MES alarm set for N parts remaining; first picks verified after splice; aligned holes and thin joint.
Replenishment	Reel/Tray IDs scanned to Feeder for traceability; Supermarket Cart stocked; Starvation is eliminated.
Audit	First Article (FA) confirms near-zero pick/miss rates for the first 50 cycles of each feeder lane.