The future of the electronics industry: efficient, agile, respectful of people and the environment

The factory of tomorrow tends to be more and more modular

Indeed, production flexibility remains the best way to react quickly to the market. Accordingly, the factory of tomorrow tends to be more and more modular: although the walls may not move (and even this is changing), on the other hand, the production cells will become totally flexible. Depending on the customer’s demand or the type of production desired, the manufacturing tools will offer more or less mobility and adaptability. A bit like in theatre, where the scenes are changed between two acts. A reactivity and flexibility that will be made possible major innovations such as 5G (no more wires needed to connect our machines) and adapted working methods.

In this respect, the adoption and continuation of Lean management at the Electronics activity of LACROIX is particularly close to my heart: this culture of eliminating waste and this philosophy of continuous improvement, which consists of doing better than yesterday and worse than tomorrow has become our day-to-day. Now fully integrated into our routines, it is bearing fruit both on the shop floor and in our processes. The integrated application of Lean management to Industry 4.0 remains the best way to reach the next level of operational excellence and thereby remain competitive.

The three pillars of this fourth revolution :

Digitisation, automation and producing in a much more human and environmentally friendly way–are already starting to show results. Spectacular breakthroughs have been made in 5 years in terms of digitising our systems (the CRM and its procurement equivalent, the SRM; the digital daily team meetings known as the digital LDM or LACROIX Daily Meeting; input controls of raw materials with the Modi table, dematerialisation of invoices, etc.) and automation (SMD lines[1] high pace, cobots all with little names (e.g., robots, AGV[2], etc.). Breakthroughs related to the environment will be offered by the Symbiose project, which will entail covering the roof and parking shades with solar panels (9,500 m² and 1600 m²). Reducing our CO2 production will become an equally major issue in the years to come.

[1] SMD: Surface mounted devices [2] AGV: Automatically guided vehicle