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December 05, 2022

Social network for human and machine: ASMPT’s Factory Chat speeds up troubleshooting in semiconductor manufacturing with Microsoft Azure

Without semiconductor chips, the world grinds to a halt. Manufacturing them is a highly complex process, and the smooth operation of production lines is essential in the electronics industry. ASMPT is the world market leader and technology pioneer in this field: headquartered in Singapore, the global company supports semiconductor and electronics manufacturers around the world in setting up integrated smart factories. With Factory Chat, based on Microsoft Azure, customers of ASMPT SMT Solutions additionally receive an intelligent error solution database, where technicians can share their knowledge regardless of their location—and machines can even find solutions themselves for problems that arise.

ASMPT SMT Solutions

The challenge: Knowledge transfer across locations in a cloud-averse industry

The automotive industry, consumer electronics, data centers, LED lighting, medical technology—none of it works without semiconductors. Demand is growing continuously and electronics manufacturers have to constantly optimize their production. What infrastructure is considered “ideal” looks different for every company: “Machines never work alone, but always as part of a larger whole, called lines,” says Olimpiu-Petru Datcu, Project Lead at ASMPT SMT Solutions.

Standards and requirements for these lines vary from industry to industry, and the more machines there are in a line, the more complex the processes. If machine goes down, it risks disrupting the workflow of the entire factory. And if that happens, fewer cars or fewer smartphones will make it onto the market, leading to enormous economic damage. “In the case of medical devices, then even human lives are in jeopardy,” Datcu says.

In 2019, ASMPT unveiled Factory Chat, a professional app based on Microsoft Azure. Co-developed with elunic AG and distributed by ASMPT, the white-label app can also be offered by other providers. Factory Chat is about shop-floor communication—not only can employees use it to communicate with each other, but connected machines can use it to generate posts and create their own time logs. The application has significantly reduced the response time to disruptions and outages. It was designed initially for on-premises use.

But for IoT (internet of things) and IIoT (industrial internet of things), the availability and scalability of the previous solution were not sufficient. “We needed a holistic cloud strategy and a powerful, purpose-built IoT platform to which we ourselves have full access—but which is also absolutely secure,” Datcu says, alluding to the industry mindset. Michael Rominger, Head of Business Development IIoT at ASMPT, continues the thought: “Our customers still have serious reservations about storing their highly sensitive and confidential data in the cloud. There’s a deep-seated aversion to the cloud in electronics manufacturing.” That aversion had to be overcome quickly—hence the decision to go with Microsoft Azure

The solution: Direct communication and fast problem-solving with Factory Chat

The fact that ASMPT machines report errors themselves was not new. However, this feature worked only locally on-premises. Machine operators had no way of viewing specific problems and related solutions from other sites. Today, Factory Chat is completely web-based. “The application works like a social medium, accessible to all a company’s technicians worldwide,” says Claudio Gusmini, Director IoT Solutions at elunic AG. Overcoming language barriers is handled by Azure Translator, which translates all information into the local language automatically and in real time. This enables global knowledge transfer and document sharing.

The people responsible for the machines enter problems manually into the system or access the troubleshooting database. To cope with the high complexity in factories, all processes can be defined in as much detail as required—through, say, shift reports, information posts, or audit information. “Operating manuals, for example, used to be stored somewhere in the factory, but now they are always at hand in Factory Chat,” Rominger says.

Communication is from person to person, but also from machine to person: the systems report errors on their own to Factory Chat and can help themselves to a certain extent. 

Factory Chat runs on Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS); performance can be adjusted to the customer’s workload and size. And the straightforward monitoring simplifies many things as well. “In terms of cost, the move to Azure is worth it every day,” Datcu says. For the implementation, ASMPT brought a member of the Microsoft Partner Network on board: elunic AG. Its IIoT experts were involved at every stage of the project: brainstorming, development, monitoring, maintenance, and further development of the product. Hard work went into developing and testing the IT architecture and technical implementation of Azure together with Microsoft at the Microsoft AI & IoT Insider Labs in Munich. “Especially in the case of major changes, such as the ASMPT integration, we benefit from the consulting services provided by Microsoft experts. Even though we have years of experience in setting up and migrating IoT architectures, this support helps us proceed with even tighter focus. elunic’s IoT architecture concepts and applications, marketed as shopfloor.io, build on Microsoft Azure IoT products and enable us to set up highly scalable systems,” Gusmini says. 

ASMPT addresses customer concerns by citing Azure’s high level of data security: “Microsoft’s cloud solution is more secure than our customers’ on-premises data centers. That’s something we communicate again and again,” Rominger says. “Microsoft’s good reputation, and especially Azure’s, builds trust—especially in conversations with IT or IoT departments.” ASMPT offers the option of using Factory Chat offline at first, so possible issues can be documented and resolved without actually connecting the machines to the application. “If that sells our customers on the idea, then together we take the next step toward connectivity and the integrated smart factory,” Datcu says. 

“With the help of Microsoft Azure, ASMPT has been able to design a complete high-performance system: from the application to hosting to authorization management. We’ve established an excellent platform that will allow us to build on that knowledge base going forward and add more applications.”

Michael Rominger, Head of Business Development IIoT, ASMPT

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