Are there specific reasons our industry has not been automating the production of connectors?
QUESTION:
Are there specific reasons our industry has not been automating the production of connectors?
ANSWER:
There are two key reasons our industry has not been automating the production of connectors:
1. We’ve been able to reduce the cost of making the basic connector bodies. Much of this relates to automated injection molding processes and ceramic ferrule standardization.
2. We’ve been able to reduce the cost of labor by moving the large connectorization operations to low-labor-cost regions. That migration has actually stymied the market for medium and large-scale, flexible automation that can deal with the rapid pace of technology changes in connecterization.
It’s interesting to note that our industry has accepted and required sophisticated testing and inspection processes and has brought them to a very high level of Island automation. By that, I mean that the equipment provides process automation testing within its own environment but is not neutrally interfaceable with other similar equipment. We have not brought the actual connector assembly operation to that level of automation. Cable Assembly houses continue to struggle with a bottleneck in the process at that testing stage and eagerly anticipate improvements.
READ THE FULL BLOG ARTICLE HERE: A call to action: Automation in the connector assembly process is an essential next step for fiber optic connectivity
