Providing Solutions that Enable Accumulation, Verification, and Modification through Information Unification

The critical aspect of a smart factory is the connectivity between R&D research institutes and manufacturing. To achieve this, technical data necessary for manufacturing must be accumulated. While the technical level of domestic smart factories has increased considerably, circuit management and CAD technology acquisition for smooth data sharing are still in an insufficient stage.

According to the 'Smart Factory Level Comparison Report' released by the Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI), technologies such as ERP, MES, networking, and PLC have reached technical levels as high as 90%, while CAD has only reached 20%.

The biggest problem slowing CAD technology advancement is the high cost involved. To unify data, intranet and network infrastructure must be established and numerous sensors installed throughout the factory, but the cost of this is difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to bear on their own. The next problem is data distortion during conversion. As data generated during the research phase is transferred to manufacturing, circuits are converted into gerber files, drawings, papers, and other formats.



Cadnics presented UDE, a circuit design data management system, as a solution to these problems. UDE supports CAD data viewer, verification, data compliance checks, quality anomaly detection, and data generation. Unlike conventional solutions that simply manage data in 'file' format, it enables time and cost savings through tracking issues and improvements in the manufacturing process during review, while also ensuring quality assurance. Through data sharing and accumulation, consistent quality can be continuously maintained despite potential quality degradation caused by manufacturing process differences depending on the manufacturer.

Accurate BOM is a critical issue in electronic circuit management. Inaccurate BOM leads to poor material planning and inaccurate product costing, increasing organizational costs. Most companies operate ERP and PLM on the web and access data relatively easily. However, there are limitations in information entry, export, and utilization. Management as well as output and integration with various solutions are necessary.

In reality, there are difficulties in traceability due to different product codes displayed in ERP, PLC, and BOM. For example, if a 100Ω resistor in the BOM is changed to 1kΩ due to quality issues, the PLC data, names, and codes differ, making traceability impossible. While the codes are initially the same, they change during operations and information cannot be grasped, making recognition difficult.

UDE consolidates all data related to processes, schematics, PCB, and manufacturing lines on a single screen, enabling identification, verification, input, and output. This ensures that data from the design stage is transferred to the manufacturing stage without errors, and the entire organization can modify and accumulate data, also providing the effect of reducing defective products.

Polilog's circuit management solution has the characteristic that when BOM is modified, the properties in the PCB tool change accordingly, allowing managers to immediately correct parts that might be overlooked. Additionally, it notifies users of modified sections and can output the corresponding images and contents as an Excel Report.

Lee Sang-seon, Executive Vice President of Polilog, stated, "While existing enterprises are smoothly collecting and managing data, their utilization and linkage methods are lacking," and emphasized that "when research institute data is also delivered to manufacturing, sharing data, making corrections, communicating with each other, and performing 'advance inspection' of defective products to reduce corporate costs and provide consumers with complete products is an important element of smart factories."