Determination and comparison of surface mount component rework cycle times of manual and fully automated robotic rework stations for rework technology selection

The aim of this paper is to provide a complete decision framework to find out when it is appropriate to use an automated robotic rework station for surface mount (SM) component rework. For this purpose, the results of the performance tests on the cell and manual rework cycle times (RCTs) have been determined using experimental studies. These are followed by the comparison of the experimental results, rework effectiveness, parametric rework cycle determination and overall rework cost studies. As a conclusion, a framework has been suggested by comparing automated versus manual rework stations to find out when it is appropriate to use an automated robotic rework cell. Furthermore, it provides manual and automated RCTs for SM components.