Introduction to Material Management

General functionalities

Material Management is used to manage and trace material at production level.

The purpose is to ensure that only validated and well known material is used in production. Material Management handles material on package level and each package must have a material label, which contains a unique identifier (MAT_ID) for this package. This MAT_ID is to be stored in the Quality DB together with the product and the material has been build into. In case of a material revocation only the very affected products have to be recalled.

After the material is registered at Material Management, it will track the material package through the complete life cycle:

Setup of the material at a specific machine
Material Monitoring (Moisture Sensitive Device (MSD) handling)
Material Management (Adding/Removing blocks, changing the expiration date)
Track material consumption and prevent overconsumption
Providing location based stock information

Material Management will block material based on various quality related attributes of the material. This will help to minimize the waste introduced by quality issues and lowers the failures costs of the value stream. In addition, on keeping an eye on various quality related attributes of a material, Material Management provides the option to create rule based blocks. The blocks can be specified using the available attributes of a material e.g. the manufacturer, the batch, supplier etc. That is used in case a supplier revokes material.

The registration of materials in Material Management could be done by scanning the labels or with automatic electronic data transfer through (SAP).

It is important that Material Management handles only "Batched" or "Stacked" materials, meaning those that cannot be identified individually and are typically used across multiple production cycles, for example bags of screws, adhesive, solder paste, bonding wire etc. These items are managed collectively rather than on an individual basis die to their nature and usage patterns.

Preserving data is crucial for ensuring quality in certain sectors of the automotive industry. In these factories, it is mandatory to retain data for a minimum of 15 years. This ensures detailed record-keeping and helps maintain quality standards over the long term.

Block Management

In general, there are 4 type of blocks, a factory currently can manage with Nexeed IAS, these are the following:

Part: The product on the production line (managed by Line Control)
Location: Can block certain stations or areas of them, usually when there’s a lot of defective output and the cause needs investigation, as further production would result in consecutive defective products
Tool: e.g., a pressing head that can be used 10,000 times before replacement
Material

The Material Management oversees only the number 4, Material blocks.

Material block

If someone tries to put the material on the production line and scans the unique identifier, the system alerts that the material is blocked, prohibiting further processes with it

There are 11 different triggering reasons for a block:

Material is not yet released for manufacturing
Material Label is not yet verified
Manual block with no specific reason
The block was created due to a blocking rule
The block was created because the package was relabeled
Duplicate Material Label
The lifetime of the material has expired
The MSD exposure limit of the material has been reached
The application of the label has failed
The material is stored in protected environment
Application of a sanction caused that block

Blocking Rule

A blocking rule definition can be used to block a material data record based on specific rules. The responsible person can create blocking rules. These rules are applied to all material data record. If the rule applies, a new rule-based material block is created.

Moisture-sensitive device

Moisture from the atmospheric environment can damage components during processing. Moisture-sensitive devices (MSD) must only be exposed to an unprotected environment for a limited time, known as the exposure time. Materials exceeding their exposure time are blocked from production. The Moisture Sensitivity Level (MSL) determines how long a material can be in a non-protected environment. If stored in a protected environment (e.g., a climate-controlled room), the exposure time can be halted depending on the MSL.

Material Monitoring

Some materials require a preparation phase after being retrieved from storage and before being set up on a production machine. For instance, certain materials must be stored at -18°C but need to reach room temperature before they are suitable for manufacturing. The preparation process, such as thawing, is monitored and controlled by the Material Monitoring feature.

The thawing time is influenced by three factors:

The type of material
The mass of the material
The temperature of the thawing environment

These three factors determine how long it takes for the material to thaw, and this process is monitored by Material Monitoring.

There are three main workflows in detail:

Single Stage Thawing: The material is taken out of the freezer and completely thawed in a single stage. This is not suitable for all materials; sometimes the thawing process can be too fast, causing the physical structure of the material to be damaged (e.g., various adhesives where water can precipitate out).
Dual Stage Thawing: After being removed from the deep freezer (the coldest freezer), the material is transferred to a production freezer, which is not as cold, and then brought to ambient temperature, completing the thawing process.
Solder Paste Monitoring: This is a specialized workflow specifically for solder paste as a material type. It includes printing a label, which indicates how long the material can be used.

Desktop Client

The reason it’s called a Desktop Client is that it doesn’t run on the web but is installed and run on a separate machine, usually next to the production line.

Material Info Panel
- Designed for MSD materials. The panel offers a view with several categories, such as "expires in 2 days". This client is associated with a specific line or collection area next to the line. Importantly, it does not list all materials in the entire factory but only those assigned to the specific location. It provides reports indicating when intervention is required, such as when materials need to be used quickly or returned to a protected environment.
MatClimate Control
- The climate cabinet can be imagined as a large refrigerator with trays. This is a protected environment (where humidity and temperature are usually lower and regulated) where all MSD calculations are performed. When materials are stored or withdrawn, the system will know. Multiple materials can be stored or withdrawn at the same time.

MES to IAS migration

Difference in starting a new monitoring process between StateTracking (MES) and MaterialMonitoring (IAS)

For starting a new monitoring process in MaterialMonitoring (IAS), the concept has changed from how it worked in StateTracking (MES).

In MES StateTracking it was necessary to call the StartTracking endpoint to initialize a new workflow, and then afterwards call FireEvent with the starting event (e.g. StoredToThawingPosition for a SingleStageThawing workflow) to make the monitoring process / workflow start monitoring the material.

In IAS MaterialMonitoring after calling the StartTracking endpoint (or the UpdateMonitoringProcessFromParameters/UpdateMonitoringProcessFromLabel endpoint) with a location that is configured for a starting state (via MonitoringLocationDefinition) no additional call to the FireEvent endpoint should be done. The monitoring process will automatically transition to the starting state of the monitoring process (e.g. InThawingPosition for SingleStageThawing) and start monitoring the material.