Elec­tronics manu­fac­turingHMLV under control: flex­ible automa­tion elim­i­nates bottle­necks

Shorter product life cycles, increasing product variety, and volatile markets are funda­men­tally changing indus­trial manu­fac­turing. Tradi­tional high-volume produc­tion is becoming less impor­tant, while high-mix, low-volume (HMLV) manu­fac­turing is becoming the new normal: many vari­ants and small batch sizes, often within a single produc­tion line.

This is pushing estab­lished automa­tion concepts to their limits. Processes designed for repeat accu­racy and long produc­tion runs quickly reach their effi­ciency limits when prod­ucts change frequently. Bottle­necks that deter­mine the cycle time of the entire line are partic­u­larly crit­ical. In elec­tronics manu­fac­turing, depan­eling is one of these key processes.

From mass-produc­tion thinking to high product variety

Tradi­tion­ally, two approaches have competed with one another: stand-alone systems offer flex­i­bility but require manual inter­ven­tion. Inline solu­tions are highly auto­mated, but are consid­ered to offer little flex­i­bility. In HMLV envi­ron­ments, this there­fore creates the impres­sion of an unavoid­able trade-off.

A project in elec­tronics manu­fac­turing at Phoenix Contact demon­strates that this can be resolved. SCHUNK Elec­tronic Solu­tions and board-handling specialist ACHAT5 jointly devel­oped a stand­alone cell with auto­matic loading, depan­eling, and palletizing. It system­at­i­cally combines flex­i­bility and automa­tion. The key here is a holistic approach that considers processes, mate­rial flow, and the level of automa­tion together from the outset.

Product change ≠ stand­still

At the heart of the solu­tion is a change in perspec­tive: product changeovers are no longer viewed as a time-consuming obstacle, but rather as an inte­gral part of the produc­tion line logic. Soft­ware, actu­a­tors, and commu­ni­ca­tion systems handle the adap­ta­tion to different vari­ants. For example, the depan­eling machine’s track width is set auto­mat­i­cally, and the para­me­ters adapt without any manual inter­ven­tion. This makes depan­eling a fully inte­grated, order-driven process.

Flex­i­bility starts with the gripper

The handling concept plays a key role. Elec­tric grip­pers make it possible to process various printed circuit board geome­tries. If a gripper’s adjust­ment range is insuf­fi­cient for different PCB sizes or geome­tries, its fingers are changed fully auto­mat­i­cally at the gripper station. Up to 276 pairs of fingers are avail­able for this purpose. The system auto­mat­i­cally checks whether the tools required for each product have been set up correctly. Setup processes there­fore take place in the back­ground – without affecting line avail­ability.

Saying goodbye to the tray

Tradi­tion­ally, indi­vidual circuit boards are placed in product-specific trays. These must be kept avail­able, changed, and assigned correctly – a consid­er­able amount of manual work that conflicts with the concept of an autonomous line. The project part­ners there­fore delib­er­ately chose a different path for Phoenix Contact.

The printed circuit boards are stacked in layers in small load carriers, with foam inter­me­diate layers between them. Specially devel­oped needle grip­pers trans­port and handle the inter­me­diate layers. They pierce the foam and posi­tion it precisely over the deposited circuit boards, enabling secure storage regard­less of the circuit boards’ size and arrange­ment. Fixed trays are no longer required.

This concept signif­i­cantly reduces the amount of setup work involved while also increasing flex­i­bility in logis­tics. Different prod­ucts can be processed using the same boxes without having to change equip­ment. At the same time, the assem­blies are protected and prepared for down­stream processes – such as assembly or ship­ping.

A wide variety of product vari­ants and fully auto­mated inline processes were long consid­ered incom­pat­ible. Not anymore.

Less manual labor, more impact

Without these flex­ible options, oper­a­tors are occu­pied with repet­i­tive, low-value tasks: manual changeovers, changing over trays, inter­vening during product changes, and contin­u­ously loading and unloading assem­blies. In the produc­tion line imple­mented here, the operator’s role is essen­tially limited to approving the produc­tion order. All of the following steps – from auto­matic setup and gripper adjust­ment to the place­ment of the circuit boards – are performed without any manual inter­ven­tion. This not only creates repro­ducible processes, but also enables compa­nies to deploy qual­i­fied employees specif­i­cally where their exper­tise adds the most value. Against the back­drop of growing labor and skilled-worker short­ages, automa­tion becomes a strategic tool: it stabi­lizes produc­tion, reduces reliance on manual routines, and contributes to a sustain­able, employee-centered produc­tion design – a key element of a healthy manu­fac­turing envi­ron­ment. 

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SCHUNK Elec­tronic Solu­tions acquires Achat Engi­neering

After years of working together as part­ners, ACHAT5 and SCHUNK Elec­tronic Solu­tions decided to join forces in early 2026. The ACHAT5 team’s core compe­ten­cies include board handling and inspec­tion solu­tions for elec­tronics manu­fac­turing. As a result, SCHUNK Elec­tronic Solu­tions will in the future offer its customers in this industry both stand-alone and inline systems from a single source – customer-focused, scal­able, and with a reduced risk at inter­faces.

ACHAT5 was founded in 2002, is head­quar­tered in Lengede in Lower Saxony, and currently employs 23 people. Both compa­nies serve the same segments of elec­tronics manu­fac­turing, including SMT assembly, and share a commit­ment to co-inno­va­tion, part­ner­ship-based collab­o­ra­tion, and the system­atic digi­tal­iza­tion of processes – extending to the vision of the “dark factory,” a fully auto­mated produc­tion facility.