Highest EMS product quality from Poland

As a contract manufacturer for electronic components, Jabil has been active for over 50 years and is one of the world´s largest EMS service providers. In 2017, the group, which was founded in Detroit in 1966, generated total sales of 19.06 billion US dollars. Jabil has been represented in Poland for 27 years, and the Kwidzyn location has a production area of 705,000 m2. Even if the name Jabil may not be familiar to some outside the electronics industry, this is how you get in touch with the products of the electronics heavyweight – because the components and devices produced at Jabil Kwidzyn are often to be found in Polish and European households. “Well-known global brands come to us with their products. We produce them to order under the seal of the respective brand, but the entire production process takes place here at Jabil Kwidzyn,” says Marek Browalski, Assistant Operations Manager at Jabil Kwidzyn.

Top quality: wave soldering under nitrogen

Not so long ago, Jabil Kwidzyn relied on various wave and selective soldering techniques for the manual assembly process of about a dozen customers. Due to increasing product variety and soldering quality requirements, as well as the need to reduce PCB contamination in the wave soldering process, Jabil developers contacted several wave soldering system manufacturers. “In the search for suitable technologies, we came to the conclusion that the best solution was a tunnel machine where soldering takes place under nitrogen,” says Marek Czubak, Industrial Engineering Leader at Jabil Kwidzyn. After a thorough analysis of the market, Jabil asked system supplier Ersa to bring its latest soldering technologies and Jabil requirements together.

Convincing test in the Demo Center

Paweł Szumny, Managing Director of the long-time Ersa Poland representative PB Technik, and the responsible Ersa Key Account Manager suggested a joint appointment in Wertheim to test the POWERFLOW N2 in the Demo Center. Together with Jabil Process Engineer Jan Zwierzchowski, Paweł Szumny travelled to Wertheim for the machine check: “We had two test days, but already on the first day it became clear that we had the POWERFLOW on board – so we produced the first assemblies which immediately showed the decisively improved soldering quality,” says Jan Zwierzchowski, who was convinced by the testing in the Demo Center right down the line – from the professional setup of the test machine and the installation of the required profile by the Ersa soldering experts to tests with different machines.

Five Ersa POWERFLOW N2 in use

After the decision of the management, Jabil Kwidzyn bought the first wave soldering machine with the latest technology at the end of 2015. The installation and commissioning of this first machine was carried out professionally by PB Technik Service and with full support from Ersa Service. Jabil currently operates five such machines for three customers at its Kwidzyn site. Thanks to the new wave soldering technology of the POWERFLOW N2 under nitrogen, the Jabil team achieves excellent quality even with many copper layers and is able to significantly minimise contamination during the wave soldering process.

In addition, the machine parameters including flux dosing can be controlled online. Dual production has been integrated on one of the five lines so that two different products can be manufactured in parallel – Jabil Kwidzyn makes full use of the possibilities offered to the user by the POWERFLOW N2. On the basis of an excellent interaction of all features, the quality of the products can be quickly optimized on all five systems. In addition to the wave soldering machines, Jabil Kwidzyn also purchased 14 Ersa selective soldering systems in various configurations that produce reliably for Jabil customers.