Protektive Pak In-Plant Handlers and Kanban Systems

Kaizen or continual improvement programs should often involve the ESD control program. When quality defects occur, many corrective actions will be improvements to the ESD control program to prevent recurrence.

Muda or Waste includes The Seven Wastes: Defects, Overproduction, Transportation, Waiting, Inventory, Motion, and Overprocessing.

We recommend using ProtektivePak In-Plant Handlers as a Kanban system. Just start with the three dimensions of the loaded PCB or other ESD sensitive item and determined the optimal size In-Plant Handler. Go to Tek Search.

We recommend using Protektive Pak impregnated corrugated which has a surface resistance of 1 x 10E6 < 1 x 10E9 ohms and is in the middle of the dissipative range. The ESD Association Packaging standard ANSI/ESD S541 section 7.2.2 includes “Packaging materials that are in intimate contact with devices should be dissipative.”

ProtektivePak In-Plant Handlers reduce ESD and physical defects, and can reduce work-in-process inventory as well as eliminating wasteful non-value added activities. As a Kaban container the In-Plant Handler can replace some or all documents. Instead of planners generating work orders, determine how many In-Plant Handlers to have on the shop floor and when cells are empty they signal the need to manufacture more of a particular item. Knowing the quantity of cells in the In-Plant Handler, one can quickly glance at the number of empty cells and know the count.

Some users do use a Kanban card and attach to the In-Plant Handler using Protektive Pak Dissipative Document Holders.

Protektive Pak impregnated corrugated has a buried shielding layer. For ESD shielding protection, with the lid in place, the In-Plant Handler can be moved or shipped outside the ESD Protected Area eliminating the need for ESD shielding bags. Per Packaging standard ANSI/ESD S541 section 6.2 Outside an EPA “Transportation of sensitive products outside of an EPA shall require packaging that provides:

1. Low charge generation.
2. Dissipative or conductive materials for intimate contact.
3. A structure that provides electrostatic discharge shielding.”

Note: the ESD Association sells most of their documents, however, the Packaging standard ANSI/ESD S541 is available as a free download. Go to www.ESDA.org, click “Standards”, then “Documents” and scroll down to Packaging for the yellow highlighted Complimentary PDF Download.