Published January 22, 2025
Modern SMT production lines continue to get faster, smarter, and more efficient. Unfortunately, many electronics manufacturers are discovering that while SMT technology has evolved, traditional test strategies have not.
For manufacturers building panelized automotive electronics, the result is often the same: growing work-in-process (WIP), delayed feedback to production, increasing scrap, and shrinking profit margins.
Here's how one leading European automotive electronics manufacturer solved this challenge by changing the way they tested PCB assemblies.
A major European automotive electronics manufacturer produced millions of electronic assemblies each year using high-speed SMT production lines.
While production capacity continued to increase, profitability on their smaller products steadily declined.
The reason wasn't manufacturing.
It was testing.
Their smaller PCBAs were manufactured in panels containing eight to twelve boards. Although the SMT equipment could build an 8-up panel nearly as quickly as a 2-up panel, the test process required significantly more time to complete.
As production volumes increased, testing became the factory's primary bottleneck.
The growing mismatch between SMT output and test capacity created a significant accumulation of untested WIP inventory.
This created several costly problems:
Instead of providing immediate feedback to production, the test department became a queue that delayed quality detection until thousands of assemblies had already been produced.
Several factors contributed to the bottleneck.
Testing time depends on:
As panel sizes increased from four boards to eight or even twelve boards, test time increased much faster than SMT production time.
Meanwhile, newer, faster pick-and-place equipment accelerated production even further, causing WIP inventory to grow rapidly.
The factory had reached a point where test—not manufacturing—limited overall production capacity.
Like many global manufacturers, the company used corporate-approved equipment for:
Although these systems met corporate standards, they simply couldn't match the output of modern SMT production lines for highly panelized assemblies.
The factory needed a fundamentally different testing strategy—not just faster equipment.
Rather than testing one board at a time, CheckSum implemented a parallel testing strategy that allowed multiple boards to be tested simultaneously.
The solution combined:
By executing testing and programming operations across multiple PCBAs at the same time, overall throughput increased dramatically while maintaining test coverage and product quality.
Instead of allowing the test department to become the bottleneck, testing now kept pace with SMT production.
After implementing CheckSum's parallel testing technologies, the manufacturer achieved measurable improvements throughout the factory.
Perhaps most importantly, production teams received immediate feedback whenever manufacturing issues occurred, preventing thousands of defective boards from being produced before problems were identified.
As PCBAs become smaller and panel counts continue to increase, traditional one-board-at-a-time test strategies become increasingly difficult to justify.
Manufacturers that invest heavily in faster SMT equipment often overlook the downstream impact on test capacity.
Without matching improvements in testing, production bottlenecks simply shift from manufacturing to quality assurance.
Parallel testing restores balance across the manufacturing process by allowing test throughput to scale with SMT output.
If your factory is experiencing any of the following, your test process may be limiting overall manufacturing performance:
These are common indicators that your testing strategy—not your production line—is limiting throughput.
Modern SMT lines can produce panelized PCB assemblies faster than ever before. Unfortunately, traditional testing methods often cannot keep pace.
By implementing parallel In-Circuit Test, Parallel Programming, and Parallel Functional Test technologies, manufacturers can eliminate bottlenecks, reduce WIP, improve quality, and increase overall manufacturing efficiency.
For manufacturers producing high-volume automotive electronics, parallel testing isn't simply an upgrade—it's becoming a competitive necessity.
If your production lines are outpacing your test department, CheckSum can help.
Our automated test systems and parallel test technologies are designed specifically for high-volume manufacturers producing panelized PCB assemblies.
Contact CheckSum today to schedule a Parallel Test Project Analysis and discover how your factory can eliminate WIP, reduce manufacturing costs, and keep pace with today's fastest SMT production lines.