Steven J. Butler, Commercial Director, Conecsus LLC

ASYS just completed the Productronica show in Munich which was our first show together with Totech, our latest addition to the ASYS family. Totech not only brings the dry cabinets to the table, but also the Dry tower, a centralized storage solution that was designed to be integrated with AIVs (Autonomous Intelligent Vehicles) in smart factories.

With that addition ASYS now offers a complete Suite of Material Logistic Solutions, ranging from solder paste storage and tracking to components and the fully autonomous magazine exchange for double sided lines.

While product development is moving forward, most of our innovation these days is around the smart factory. We are designing machines to be Cobot friendly, compatible with the HERMES standard to allow for full vendor-independent traceability of PCBs through the entire line and of course continue to broaden the PULSE community which is an empowering tool for the operator.

Other features we will launch in the Americas in 2018 are the new APS tooling system on the EKRA printers - a tooling system that can be automatically setup and verified without help from the operator - essential to speed up change overs. Also, the new IPAG dispenser series will be introduced, now offering various different valves which feature a quick-exchange system so these dispense heads can easily be moved from one tool to another.

In short, we are preparing for the Smart Factory in the Americas.