Electronics Manufacturing
Trace a board back to the date code on every part, hold the inspection record that proves its workmanship class, and schedule SMT against real capacity.
Electronics manufacturing software earns its keep the moment a customer asks which date code of a part went into which serial number, and whether that board was inspected to IPC-A-610 Class 2 or Class 3. WorkCell keeps that answer as a by-product of running the work order rather than as a separate documentation exercise. Receiving captures the manufacturer lot and date code, issues to a job preserve the link, and completions assign serial numbers, so as-built genealogy is a query instead of a reconstruction. Versioned bills of material carry the revision the board was actually built to, operator terminals record quantities, scrap and inspection results at the line, and the same database schedules placement, through-hole and test against real capacity.
Contract electronics manufacturers and EMS providers, plus OEMs building their own printed circuit board assemblies, cable harnesses, box builds and finished electronic products in high-mix, low-to-medium volume.
| Standard | What It Requires |
|---|---|
| ISO 9001 | The quality management baseline most EMS customers audit against, covering identification and traceability, nonconforming product, and corrective action. |
| RoHS | Restricted substances in electrical and electronic equipment must be kept below threshold, which in practice means holding a declaration for every part number you buy. |
| REACH | Substances of very high concern above 0.1% by weight must be declared through the supply chain, so candidate-list exposure has to be answerable per part. |
| IATF 16949 | Automotive electronics work adds PPAP submission, lot traceability of safety-related subcomponents, and a defined reaction plan on nonconforming output. |
| ISO 13485 | Medical electronics adds device history records, component traceability to the finished device, and controlled change to the build configuration. |
A reel is received against a lot that records its manufacturer part number, date code and the supplier it came from. Issuing it to a work order keeps the link, and completing the order assigns serial numbers. A failed board in the field resolves backward to the exact component lots on it, the operator who ran each operation, the inspection results recorded against it, and the bill of material revision in effect at the time. When a part is recalled or a counterfeit escape is suspected, you get the affected serial list from a query rather than from a week spent in receiving logs.
Inspection results captured at the operation against the IPC-A-610 class the customer bought, with the assembly revision and component lots already attached.
Generated from the job record, tying the shipped serial numbers to their component lots and completed inspections.
RoHS and REACH declarations stored against the part and the receiving lot, so a customer substance question is answered from the system rather than from an email thread.
Severity-classified nonconformances with disposition and the 8-D corrective action that closed them, linked to the job and the serial numbers involved.
The system knows you bought a resistor; it does not know which reel, date code or manufacturer lot went onto which board. When a part is recalled or a field failure points at one date code, the containment list is assembled by hand from packing slips, kitting sheets and memory, and nobody is confident it is complete.
AOI logs sit on the machine, in-circuit test results export to a share, and the visual inspection sign-off is a tick on a paper traveler. Nothing joins them to the serial number that shipped, so first-pass yield is calculated monthly from a spreadsheet instead of being visible per operation.
Dry packs come out of the cabinet, the bag gets opened, and the floor-life clock starts running in somebody's head. J-STD-033 floor life is measured in hours for MSL 4 and MSL 5 parts, and an exposure that quietly exceeds it produces delamination nobody finds until the boards are populated.
One line, one oven, one test fixture, and forty jobs that all want them. A static spreadsheet plan assumes the stencil is free and the kit is complete when the job arrives. Neither holds, so a shortage on one part number silently pushes three other customers' delivery dates.
Lot and date code traceability through the build
Receiving records the manufacturer lot and date code, issues to a work order preserve the link, and completions assign serials. The genealogy comes from the transactions themselves, so nobody maintains a parallel kitting log to prove it later.
Inspection, nonconformance and corrective action in one loop
AQL sampling plans and inspection templates drive what gets checked and to which class. Failures raise a severity-classified nonconformance, systemic ones escalate into an 8-D corrective action, and the whole chain stays attached to the job it came from.
Versioned bills of material and routings
Every bill of material and routing carries a revision and an effective date, so a board built two quarters ago still shows the structure and process it was actually built to. Changes supersede rather than overwrite.
Finite capacity scheduling across the line
The scheduler plans against real machine and labor capacity instead of pretending it is infinite, and proposal runs let a planner test a sequence before committing it. When a part slips, you see which deliveries move before you promise anything.
Shop floor terminals that capture the record
Operators clock on to an operation, record good quantity, scrap and defect reason, and enter inspection results at the line. The yield number and the cost record come from the same entry, so nobody does the paperwork twice.
A REST API and webhooks for test data
Test and inspection results from your own equipment can be posted against the job and serial through the API, and webhooks push events out. That is how an AOI machine, an in-circuit tester or a functional test fixture lands its pass, fail and measured values on the serial that was tested, so yield by operation comes off the equipment rather than off a shift report.
Versioned bills of material and routings carrying the revision a board was actually built to.
InventoryLot and date code traceability from receiving through shipment, with QC hold states.
QualityAQL inspections, severity-classified nonconformances, and 8-D corrective action.
ProductionFinite scheduling and operator terminals capturing quantities, scrap and results at the line.
Quoting, engineering, purchasing, inventory, scheduling, shop floor and job costing on one database.
MESOperator terminals capturing actual quantities, scrap reasons and inspection results at the operation.
QMSInspections, nonconformances and 8-D corrective action tied to the serial numbers that produced them.
APSFinite capacity scheduling across a shared line, oven and test cell.
Wafer and die-level genealogy through long sequential process flows.
RoHSWhat the restriction requires and which declarations WorkCell keeps for it.
ISO 9001The traceability, nonconformance and corrective action records the standard asks for.
Tier SuppliersBuilding to OEM releases, flow-downs and schedules.
What is ERP software for electronics manufacturing?
It runs quoting, purchasing, inventory, scheduling, production and quality on one database, with component-level traceability and inspection records treated as first-class data. The difference from general ERP is that a board's as-built genealogy and its workmanship record are part of the transaction, not a separate spreadsheet.
How far down do we have to trace components on a PCB assembly?
As far as your customer's contract says, which is why shops argue about it on quality forums. WorkCell holds the manufacturer lot and date code at receiving and carries it through issue, build and serial assignment, so you can trace to the reel whether or not a given customer demands it.
Can WorkCell hold IPC-A-610 Class 2 and Class 3 inspection records?
Yes. Inspection templates define the characteristics and the acceptance class, results are recorded at the operation, and failures raise a severity-classified nonconformance. The acceptance class rides on the inspection record alongside the operator who was qualified to apply it, so a Class 3 call is attributable to a named, cleared person rather than to a stamp.
Does WorkCell track moisture sensitivity level floor life?
Yes. MSL is an item attribute, dry-pack stock is tracked by lot, and the exposure clock runs against the lot from the moment the bag is opened, so a part past its floor life sits in a QC hold state the system enforces rather than going down the line because the shift was behind. A bake is recorded against the lot it reset, which is the evidence a J-STD-033 audit asks for.
Can we see first-pass yield per operation?
Operators record good quantity, scrap and defect reason at each operation, so first-pass yield reads per step rather than per month. AOI and in-circuit tester results post straight onto the serial through the REST API, so the yield number at each station comes off the equipment that measured it.
See it run on your parts.
Tell us how your line runs today and we will tell you straight whether WorkCell is a fit.