[Interview – Conn Crawford] What happens in our UK-based factory?

We recently spoke with Conn Crawford, a pivotal member of our production engineering team. Conn chats about the latest advancements and ongoing developments taking place at our UK-based manufacturing facility and gives some valuable insights into our engineering processes.

Hi Conn, thanks for joining us. Let’s start with a little about you. Can you tell us about your role and time so far at Pyronix?

Of course. I’m Conn Crawford, I’ve been with Pyronix for just over two years. Having previously worked in the aerospace and safety device manufacturing industries, I joined the company as a Production Engineer in our Rotherham factory. I’ve since transitioned into my current role as the New Product Implementation and Asset Management Lead, which means I’m responsible for the safe landing of all things new on our shop floor, as well as looking after the company’s plastic injection mould tools around the world. It’s an exciting and varied role that gets me involved in projects across the business.

Over the last few years, we’ve made significant investments in our Rotherham-based manufacturing site. Can you chat a bit about that?

As part of our company-wide commitment to innovation, we’re continually looking to improve and develop our processes.

The most essential part of that is investing in and nurturing our skilled manufacturing team, without whom we couldn’t manufacture on the volume we do; our people are our number one asset in helping us to produce over 100,000 products a month.

In addition to that, we’ve invested heavily in state-of-the-art machinery that ensures we deliver consistency in the quality of our products. One such improvement was the recent update of our SMT line, which now incorporates three cutting-edge Fuji AIMEX 3 machines, as well as a Parmi Xceed 3D Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) Machine.

What do these new machines mean for production at Pyronix?

Our new machines allow us to have an incredibly high level of quality on our surface mount assemblies due to their immense level of accuracy and repeatability. The AOI automatically highlights defects in the product and allows us to inspect them in 3D. If we know there’s a production problem occurring on the line, or test results aren’t up to the standards we expect, we’re able to quickly identify that using the AOI or other advanced eyes-on inspection equipment we have in the factory. We can then make adjustments to programs on the machines to completely eradicate any issues.

Beyond the SMT area, what other investments have been made?

We’ve recently completed several significant projects across the factory, including a comprehensive review of our flow solder process. We’ve now introduced a top-of-the-line oven profiler; which essentially monitors all of the parameters required inside the machine; ensuring precise control and reliability in an otherwise volatile process.

In addition to flow solder, we’ve implemented a fully automated conformal coating line that allows us to completely environmentally protect our PCBAs. Conformal coating provides enhanced protection of the products PCB from environmental factors, over and above plastics design, aimed at improving the stability and reliability of our products over time. Our products are tested and instantly coated in an inert environment that ensures we increase reliability and quality for our customers.

Could you tell us a little about how we use 3D printing in the factory?

We’re constantly evolving and looking at how we can bring technology in to solve problems, and our adoption of rapid prototyping and 3D printing is a testament to that. What’s brilliant about having 3D printing available to us is that our production team can say: “if we had this tool, we could do this job a little better” and we’re able to work with them, on the fly, to provide a solution with our 3D printers – sometimes in as little as two hours!

We’re able to quickly change tool handles so people can do their job faster or more comfortably, for example. We can also develop jigs for holding PCBs in ways specific to our products. PCBAs can be all shapes and sizes depending on the packaging, so we need to be able to adapt and 3D printing facilitates that well.

3D printing in the factory has been a game changer; we even print in ESD (electrostatic discharge). Our factory site is ESD-safe – a necessity for electronics manufacturing – meaning circuit boards are protected against getting static shocks from outside sources because the floor will take away any static electricity generated from walking around. We print in ESD-safe material so the tools we make are not going to affect the product in any way.

How does our manufacturing site stack up against industry standards?

As a business, we are constantly investing to take us beyond industry standards. For example, our AIMEXs aren’t a platform used solely within consumer electronics engineering, it’s a platform that’s used across other industries, like in manufacturing for aerospace – the same is true for the AOI.

These machines are capable of manufacturing at a level well beyond any grading you can give. Within the factory we operate to industry standards – but we hold ourselves to higher levels of individual process, driving operational and manufacturing excellence across all we do.

Customer satisfaction is a top priority at Pyronix. Can you tell us how we ensure a customer-centric approach is carried through our engineering processes?

The core values we hold at the heart of our Supply Chain team are those of; Customer Focus; Integrity; and Respect. None is more important than the other, but when it comes to observing them equally in an environment that is often lacking a real customer to talk to, that Customer Focus has to be constantly worked on and that’s exactly what we do.

I feel that the senior leadership do a very good job of listening to the opinion of all staff when it comes to the matter, encouraging people throughout the team to speak up whenever they’ve found fault and offer an open forum to discuss it.

From an engineering process standpoint, we use all of the data available to us to ensure that the customer is receiving the best version of the product possible at that moment in time. And when it comes to the delivery of new products, I do my best to involve customer-facing stakeholders throughout development.

Lastly, what is your favourite Pyronix Product and why?

I think I have to say the Enforcer. The wireless Enforcer V11 was one of the earliest projects I worked on at Pyronix. It’s rewarding to be involved in the end-to-end process of creating an award-winning product and its wide range of peripherals, like your KXs, ZEMs, door contacts and shocks. There’s a satisfaction in having the product designed, built and shipped all from our Rotherham-based factory in the UK, and a sense of pride in not only creating an exceptional product but also in contributing to a legacy of innovation and excellence that defines Pyronix.