Solder Paste Monitoring

The Solder Paste Monitoring process is used to monitor the thawing and usage of solder paste material. The process starts when the material is put from the deep freeze cabinet to the thawing position. A connected printer prints a label indicating the time during which the material can be used in production. While the material is thawing, the use of this material in production is prevented by blocking the material with the BlockingReason MaterialNotReleasedForManufacturing. The existence of the block is checked every 2 minutes. If the block is missing, it is recreated automatically. Once the material has been thawed, it can be placed on a machine and used in production for a period of time controlled by parameters. After exceeding the timeframe, the material is blocked.

Solder Paste Monitoring modifies the expiration date of the material to the date when the material is expected to expire due to the stability time.

Standard case timeline

The following image shows the standard flow over time of a Solder Paste Monitoring process when the stability time is lower than the time until the material would expire due to its normal expiration date.

Process flow

States

State name	Description	Start state	End state
In Thawing Position	The material has been moved to the thawing position. If the current expiration date is higher than the stability time of the material, the expiration date is set to the current date + stability time. A new MaterialNotReleasedForManufacturing block is created for the material. The material is set up to the location of the thawing position with the StationInfo set to the scanned position (SetupStatus: Setup). The material then changes to the Thawing state automatically.	X
Thawing	The material is thawing and cannot be moved back to the freezer anymore. Every two minutes the system checks if the MaterialNotReleasedForManufacturing block still exists. If it is missing, the block is recreated automatically. The material remains in this state until the Thawing Time has passed.
Ready For Manufacturing	Thawing has finished and the material can be used in production. Any existing MaterialNotReleasedForManufacturing blocks on the material are removed.
In Production	The material has been set up to a machine. The location of the monitoring entry will be set to the current location of the material, and the position of the monitoring entry will be set to the Station Info of the material. This represents the location where the material has actually been set up for production.
Expired	The stability time has been exceeded, the material is considered expired and has been blocked with the BlockingReason Expired.		X
Print	This state is only used to show the printing attempts in the history of the Monitoring Details Page. During the Solder Paste Monitoring process, the material never enters the state Print.

State name

Description

Start state

End state

In Thawing Position

The material has been moved to the thawing position. If the current expiration date is higher than the stability time of the material, the expiration date is set to the current date + stability time. A new MaterialNotReleasedForManufacturing block is created for the material. The material is set up to the location of the thawing position with the StationInfo set to the scanned position (SetupStatus: Setup). The material then changes to the Thawing state automatically.

Thawing

The material is thawing and cannot be moved back to the freezer anymore. Every two minutes the system checks if the MaterialNotReleasedForManufacturing block still exists. If it is missing, the block is recreated automatically. The material remains in this state until the Thawing Time has passed.

Ready For Manufacturing

Thawing has finished and the material can be used in production. Any existing MaterialNotReleasedForManufacturing blocks on the material are removed.

In Production

The material has been set up to a machine. The location of the monitoring entry will be set to the current location of the material, and the position of the monitoring entry will be set to the Station Info of the material. This represents the location where the material has actually been set up for production.

Expired

The stability time has been exceeded, the material is considered expired and has been blocked with the BlockingReason Expired.

This state is only used to show the printing attempts in the history of the Monitoring Details Page. During the Solder Paste Monitoring process, the material never enters the state Print.

Entering the state In Production

It is recommended to have the state transition to In Production be performed via DDL whenever the material is set up to a machine. If this is not possible, it can also be triggered manually by scanning a location. Therefore, a Monitoring Location Definition with target state In Production must be configured and the configured location must be scanned. The material then changes its state from Ready For Manufacturing to In Production.

If the user has MaterialManagement Expert or MaterialManagement Administrator role, the user can trigger this transition from the web user interface in the Monitoring Details Page using the Fire Event.

Printing the label

When the material starts thawing, a label is printed on the configured label printer (Zebra printer). If the printing fails, it will be retried automatically two times with a delay of one minute. Printing attempts will be displayed in the Monitoring Details Page of the material with the state Print. The state Print is only used for history entries.

If Printer Setting is not configured for this process in the Monitoring Process Definition, the label printing is skipped. To configure a printer, refer to the Printer Settings and Printer Templates.

The printing process sends an asynchronous command to the printer. This means that if the printer encounters an error, the printing command will not fail. As a result, the application will not be able to provide information regarding any issues with the printer or with the result of the printing command. The label printing process using the example template file on this page, was verified with a 'Zebra ZT610' label printer.

Printer template variables

The following template variables (placeholders) are available to insert values from the Solder Paste Monitoring process into a template file:

Template variable	Description	Example
{MatId}	Material Id of the material that is monitored	0000002262SFRCC003V1AA1
{StartYear}	4 digit year when the material starts becoming usable for production	2025
{StartMonth}	Localized short name of the month when the material starts becoming usable for production	Mar
{StartMonth2Digit}	2 digit month when the material starts becoming usable for production	03
{StartDay}	2 digit day when the material starts becoming usable for production	08
{StartTime}	Hours and minutes in 24h format when the material starts becoming usable for production	13:18
{StartTimeShortPattern}	Localized short time (hours and minutes) when the material starts becoming usable for production	1:18 PM
{EndYear}	4 digit year when the material ends being usable for production	2025
{EndMonth}	Localized short name of the month when the material ends being usable for production	Nov
{EndMonth2Digit}	2 digit month when the material ends being usable for production	11
{EndDay}	2 digit day when the material ends being usable for production	13
{EndTime}	Hours and Minutes in 24h format when the material ends being usable for production	07:23
{EndTimeShortPattern}	Localized short time (hours and minutes) when the material ends being usable for production	7:23 AM

Template variable

Description

Example

{MatId}

Material Id of the material that is monitored

0000002262SFRCC003V1AA1

{StartYear}

4 digit year when the material starts becoming usable for production

2025

{StartMonth}

Localized short name of the month when the material starts becoming usable for production

Mar

{StartMonth2Digit}

2 digit month when the material starts becoming usable for production

{StartDay}

2 digit day when the material starts becoming usable for production

{StartTime}

Hours and minutes in 24h format when the material starts becoming usable for production

13:18

{StartTimeShortPattern}

Localized short time (hours and minutes) when the material starts becoming usable for production

1:18 PM

{EndYear}

4 digit year when the material ends being usable for production

2025

{EndMonth}

Localized short name of the month when the material ends being usable for production

Nov

{EndMonth2Digit}

2 digit month when the material ends being usable for production

{EndDay}

2 digit day when the material ends being usable for production

{EndTime}

Hours and Minutes in 24h format when the material ends being usable for production

07:23

{EndTimeShortPattern}

Localized short time (hours and minutes) when the material ends being usable for production

7:23 AM

Example Template File

Example printer template file for Solder Paste Monitoring

CT~~CD,~CC^~CT~
^XA~TA000~JSN^LT0^MNW^MTD^PON^PMN^LH0,0^JMA^PR6,6~SD15^JUS^LRN^CI0^XZ
^XA
^MMT
^PW600
^LL0300
^LS0
^FO512,96^GFA,01152,01152,00012,:Z64:
eJxjYBiagP//Bzhb/v8PONv+/x84u4bBDs6uYJCDshj/g0ADmM0MZh/Azz4AI4hkE2EmshsYbECAYRiyoXgosUGJpALKlgdGESxh8QPZsATHDI/GUUAxAABVDmOp:1949
^FO0,96^GFA,01152,01152,00012,:Z64:
eJztkj0KwzAMhRUyeItvUF8kONfqEBodzUfJEVK6eCi4fpH8k7lToQLDh7GeHs8i+tVajopjSpVtSqE9aY8SjW/FIRI9lM1O5FhbgxyUg+wu7Due0aOid/REYVy5ubEXHtC23oQhHSdxnHk4rDBD3oidzCYYLmxZ+bQ0VvbKUFhPNeGoPEFeJoKz+8omNLbc2FFjX9hCvunHwgby1Q/CUeYsT8W/5cIjO3UOBa9uMWWViWdWyFKyouehYed67Y23oMHnWljDJvmvM2y6/l3/p7hzgpcd6HeDlrjVnel3qd+xfvf+9VV9AKPxVAY=:BA64
^FO256,96^GFA,01152,01152,00012,:Z64:
eJxjYBgF9AMCSGwLJHYNEtsOiS2PxOZvQLDZDyDYzA8QbMYPSBp+gEn7/yDwB4n9Dwf7D4ZeDDOR7UJ2A7LbkN2M7BdkPyL7HTlMRsFIAwC6hyNj:8F58
^FO103,36^GB0,190,3^FS
^FO506,34^GB0,186,3^FS
^FO105,34^GB405,0,3^FS
^FT334,103^A0N,42,40^FH\^FD{EndYear}^FS
^FT334,155^A0N,42,40^FH\^FD{EndDay}.{EndMonth}^FS
^FT334,207^A0N,42,40^FH\^FD{EndTime}^FS
^FT113,105^A0N,42,40^FH\^FD{StartYear}^FS
^FT113,157^A0N,42,40^FH\^FD{StartDay}.{StartMonth}^FS
^FT113,209^A0N,42,40^FH\^FD{StartTime}^FS
^FO4,221^GB101,0,5^FS
^FO508,216^GB81,0,5^FS
^FT30,280^A0N,42,40^FH\^FD{MatId}^FS
^PQ1,0,1,Y^XZ

Reprinting the label manually

If the printed label has been lost or damaged or was not printed successfully, the label can be reprinted manually by clicking print in the Monitoring Details Page. The label can only be reprinted, while the process is still running and has not entered an end state.

Used process definition parameters

Parameter	Possible values	Mandatory	Description
Thawing Time	Any time span	Mandatory	Sets the time how long the material needs to thaw before it can be used in production.
Stability Time	> Thawing Time	Mandatory	Sets the time how long the material can be used in the production after moving it to the thawing position.
Minimum Supply Time	Any time span	Mandatory	A minimum time the material has to be available (not expired) during the process. The time counts after moving the material to the thawing position. When starting the Solder Paste Monitoring process, the material expiration is calculated. If it expires earlier than the Minimum Supply Time, the process will not start thawing the material, but instead abort with an error and end in the state Aborted.
Printer Setting	Any existing Printer Setting	Optional	Sets which printer should be used for printing the label. If no printer setting is set, no label will be printed. If a *Printer Setting* is set, a *Printer Template* must also be set.
Printer Template	Any existing Printer Template	Optional	Defines the content and format of the printed label and the timezone and language in which dates and times are printed on the label. If a *Printer Template* is set, a *Printer Setting* must also be set.

Parameter

Possible values

Mandatory

Description

Thawing Time

Any time span

Mandatory

Sets the time how long the material needs to thaw before it can be used in production.

Stability Time

> Thawing Time

Mandatory

Sets the time how long the material can be used in the production after moving it to the thawing position.

Minimum Supply Time

Any time span

Mandatory

A minimum time the material has to be available (not expired) during the process. The time counts after moving the material to the thawing position. When starting the Solder Paste Monitoring process, the material expiration is calculated. If it expires earlier than the Minimum Supply Time, the process will not start thawing the material, but instead abort with an error and end in the state Aborted.

Printer Setting

Any existing Printer Setting

Optional

Sets which printer should be used for printing the label. If no printer setting is set, no label will be printed. If a Printer Setting is set, a Printer Template must also be set.

Printer Template

Any existing Printer Template

Optional

Defines the content and format of the printed label and the timezone and language in which dates and times are printed on the label. If a Printer Template is set, a Printer Setting must also be set.