In SMT manufacturing, reel splitting is an important link between material preparation in the warehouse and component placement on the production line. As the variety of materials and the number of production batches continue to increase, material preparation requires not only attention to the quantity of components being split, but also verification of the condition of the carrier tape itself. If...

A line needs 2,000 components, so the warehouse issues a full reel of 5,000. The line uses 2,000 and returns the remaining 3,000. The return is booked, the reel goes back on the shelf. It sounds clean — except that the odd 3,000 on that reel may not be 3,000 at all. In practice it usually isn't. The remainder gets established three different ways — by counting, by weighing, or by trusting the orig...

There are usually two things people say about reel remainders. One is “save whatever you can”. The other is “it isn't worth much”. Neither is quite right. The cost of a remainder has two parts: one in material, one in people. The first is easy to see. The second is barely recorded at all. 1. Remainders are not born as scrap. They are short strips nobody splices At the end of a reel, a few dozen to...