Motion-control companies must develop global feature sets to stay competitive in a changing world market. Today's global marketplace is creating unique engineering and design issues for both machine designers and component suppliers that were not considered particularly important when products were designed, built, and used in only one country or continent. Designing the next-generation packaging machine, semiconductor process tool, or electronic assembly system for China, Brazil, France, or the United States requires that machine designers and component suppliers address a variety of issues including cultural, logistical, component availability, tooling, technical standards, and service. Some of these issues are more easily addressed, but others require better up-front planning, more time, and expense. One thing is certain; it is changing the way system and component suppliers are engineering and manufacturing their next-generation products. As internal engineering resources continue to be eliminated or outsourced, designers are being asked to do more and in less time. Machines must now meet varying design specifications and requirements for use in the global marketplace. As profit margins become thinner, a machine must be less complicated, more economical to manufacture, and be supported anywhere in the world. Simplicity of design makes the process easier in terms of high performing and highly reliable components that meet any number of different global specifications, as well as off-the-shelf component availability to shorten lead times. And component and subsystem suppliers are adapting to this new market reality. Gone are the days when a machine characteristic has to be designed around the limitation of a single component. Today, products designed into next-generation machines must be flexible enough for global acceptance. In other words, machines need to work as effectively in the United States at 60 Hz as they do in Italy at 50 Hz. At a systems level, motion-control components must address all of
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EDM machining services remove metal by burning instead of cutting or grinding. There are three basic types of electro discharge machining (EDM) operations: electrode EDM, wire EDM, and small-hole EDM.
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IC interconnect components interface or connect a microelectronic semiconductor chip to a board or larger scale device.
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