Sun East

SMT printer S510 — product identity study

Imagine the new product-identity of Sun East, indus­tri­al equip­ment man­u­fac­turer for its new gen­er­a­tion of SMT print­er (machine for PCB print­ing). A SMT print­er does not work alone, it is part of a pro­duc­tion line, con­sist­ing of a load­ing machine, the SMT print­er that cre­ate the PCB, a con­trol mod­ule, one or more machines to insert and solder the com­pon­ents on the PCB, an oven to dry the PCB & com­pon­ents, and a machine that checks the qual­ity of the PCB.

It was there­fore neces­sary to design a machine that fits eas­ily in this set. The chal­lenge was also to give a true product-signature, eas­ily iden­ti­fi­able and recog­niz­able, but not easy to copy by com­pan­ies reselling Sun East machines under their own brand, by simply chan­ging the doors marked with the Sun logo East. Compared to the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion of machines, one con­straint was to use fol­ded met­al sheet for the cov­er pan­els and to min­im­ize the use of bolts and screws to fix them.

The over­all archi­tec­ture con­sists of 4 extruded alu­min­um columns, which give to the machine a very ser­i­ous aspect, pro­fes­sion­al and qual­it­at­ive. These corner units are like an “exo­skel­et­on”, and give a very stable look. Each Sun East machines would use the same ele­ments, which could be adap­ted in height, and thus be declin­able on all their machines. These ele­ments con­trib­ute, bey­ond any graph­ic or logo col­or (too eas­ily replace­able) to clearly identi­fy a Sun East machine. The width of the machine has been reduced and its height has been slightly increased to give it more eleg­ant proportions.

Creation of an impact­ing col­or code. Black sat­in body (already used on the chassis of the machine) and a red belt (from the red of the brand’s logo). This belt allows to visu­ally sep­ar­ate the work­ing area from the main­ten­ance area. It also brings the sup­port arm for the mon­it­or, key­board and mouse.

We provided ergo­nom­ic solu­tions for easy install­a­tion, usage and main­ten­ance of the machine. We brought also bet­ter ergo­nom­ics to the con­trol mon­it­or, key­board and mouse thanks to a new adjustable sup­port arm, for bet­ter vis­ib­il­ity of the screen by the tech­ni­cian. The sup­port arm also provides a clev­er man­age­ment of com­puter cables and easy access to con­nec­tions. The access doors have lar­ger open­ings, for a bet­ter visu­al con­trol of the machine’s work.

The cable con­nect­ors are regrouped in one single loc­a­tion for an easi­er install­a­tion of the machine. Feet are adjustable to improve sta­bil­ity and bal­ance of the machine. We imple­men­ted stor­age space in the lower front part of the machine. The lower side pan­els now have lock­ing sys­tems, in addi­tion to handles, to ensure that only author­ized per­son­nel can open and access the tech­nic­al parts of the machine. The upper side pan­els are equipped with mag­nets and handles to be eas­ily removed by the tech­ni­cian, if necessary.

Additional cos­met­ic.

Backstage of the project

Machine ana­lys­is and design requirements

On site ana­lys­is, at Sun East, Shenzhen (China), to under­stand what is an SMT print­er: pur­pose, set-up, usage, but also con­cep­tion, indus­tri­al­iz­a­tion, indus­tri­al pro­cesses mastered by the cli­ent, clas­sic­al assembly principles…

From there, we can bet­ter under­stand the con­straints and needs of Sun East, and estab­lish with them rel­ev­ant design requirements.

Direct com­pet­it­ors — Local / Mapping

Market ana­lys­is high­light a dis­tinc­tion between loc­al com­pet­it­ors (Chinese) and Overseas com­pet­it­ors. The first thing to note is that most com­pet­it­ors do not offer really attract­ive machines in the SMT print­er market.

Local com­pet­it­ors do not provide a really attract­ive design, but some, like FolungWin and HDGD focuses on the exter­i­or style of their machines. It is the same for Oversea com­pet­it­ors, except for com­pan­ies like Speedline and Mydata. Dek, inter­na­tion­al com­pet­it­or offers a style that brings a dif­fer­ence, but failed to come up with an attract­ive and pro­fes­sion­al design to its machine. Only Ekra, Fuji and Sony / Juki man­aged to bring attract­ive designs and strong iden­tit­ies for some of their machines.

The most attract­ive design iden­tity on the mar­ket is provided by Ekra for its Serio 4000. The most con­sist­ent design iden­tity is from Sony, for its range Saxes, all the machines shar­ing the same product-identity.

Project trend axis

First remark­able ele­ment: mod­ern machines have a cos­met­ic made of 2 or 3 col­ors max­im­um. Strong con­trasts are often used, as well as qual­it­at­ive mater­i­als (Eol, Datron, Kuka, Metal Industries Wrench …). The shapes vary, but the idea of clear line of strength is always present. Machines are show­ing sobri­ety and ration­al­ism (Eol, ProJect). They have an archi­tec­ture that is either mono­lith­ic or show­ing dis­tinct­ive areas for the doors, main­ten­ance, or work areas (Eol, Datron).

The trend is also to have a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on the brand image with qual­it­at­ive details/materials (Huawei, Kuka). In this case, the sup­port ele­ment of the brand­ing give a struc­tur­ing effect, and becomes an integ­ral part to the style of the machine, instead of being just a print­ing, or a replace­able plate on the machine. Cable man­age­ment and ergo­nom­ics of the ter­min­al access have improved in gen­er­al, so spe­cial atten­tion should be brought to this part (Aures).

Brand val­ues

Illustration of brand val­ues of the com­pany Sun East, with its defin­i­tions and, for each, value a form­al illus­tra­tion, which allows a bet­ter over­view of the brand and its uni­verse. Those val­ues will be form­al­ized dur­ing the design research stage.

Advanced: A machine that is super­i­or in com­par­is­on to its peers. It involves an evol­u­tion of pos­sib­il­it­ies through for­ward think­ing, in order to bring cut­ting edge achieve­ments. It goes bey­ond High Tech, as it does not rely solely on tech­no­logy, but also on think­ing, usage, res­ults, and style as well.

Professional: A machine that is made to achieve the right results/performances in the right time, expec­ted by a pro­fes­sion­al. A machine that is made to last in its per­form­ances and lifetime.

Precision: A machine that has been made with pre­ci­sion. A machine that is accur­ate in its read­ing, and which provides pre­cise results.

Simple: A machine that is simple, com­fort­able to use. A machine that goes to the essen­tial of its func­tion. A machine that is just right for itself. A machine that have not been made in com­par­is­on to oth­er machines, try­ing to achieve more. A machine that has been designed and man­u­fac­tured to answer 100% of the real needs and expect­a­tions of users.

Qualitative: A machine that is per­ceived as good/high qual­ity by people, because it is made of the right choice of mater­i­als, pro­cess, and fin­ishes, to main­tain its appeal & func­tion­al­ity over the time. It also provides a pleas­ant user exper­i­ence because of touch feel­ing of materials.