Assembly - November 2008 - (Page 32) 2008 Assembly Plant of the Year specifications—all products assembled in the plant have a mean-time-to-fail measurement that could potentially reach 50 years. “We have a labor-intensive process that depends on highly skilled knowledge workers to assemble and configure these product lines,” says King. “Our processes are well-defined and followed with a great deal of precision to recognize successful performance against key process indicators which the company and our customers rely on. What makes this plant unique is that we have both a build-to-plan fabrication process as well as a build-to-order fulfillment process.” The build-to-plan model is used for repetitive assembly processes and high-usage subassemblies, while the build-to-order model applies to complex subassemblies that are configured to a particular customer request. Orders consist not only of hardware and feature offerings, but also software preload options. As a result, all features offered on both System z and Power Systems are customizable to the point of having an almost infinite combination of configuration possibilities. “The hardware is manufactured and tested to strict specifications, and is extremely dependent on feature topology, placement, connection and parametric performance criteria,” says Boldrin. “Our business model also provides for field upgrades to occur on any given machine type or serial number in the field. This forces us to test full configurations in the factory, prior to shipping to the customer.” In the early years of high-end server manufacturing at IBM, each order was built from scratch for each independent customer. Component, fab subassembly and system configuration testing was done in a serial manner only after Many large panel subassemblies are shipped from Poughkeepsie to IBM facilities overseas. Your Guide To Wire Processing Schleuniger’s mapping the way to higher production rates with customizable transfer systems. TransferModule 1500 TransferModule 6000 www.schleuniger-na.com/tm_am (603) 621-2626 32 ASSEMBLY / November 2008 www.assemblymag.com asb08084schleun.indd 1 7/3/08 11:10:24 AM http://www.schleuniger-na.com/tm_am http://www.schleuniger-na.com/tm_am http://www.assemblymag.com
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