Panasonic Corporation Improves Quality of Notebook PC with LabVIEW and PXI

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Author(s):
Takeuti  Isao  - Chief Engineer,  Plant Production Engineering Team, Electronics Appliances

Industry:
Consumer Goods, Electronics

Products:
Modular Instruments, NI TestStand, PXI/CompactPCI, LabVIEW

The Challenge:
Reducing test time of new  releases of the Panasonic Toughbook notebook PC and decreasing the  amount of power consumption and carbon dioxide emissions from the  production plant.

The Solution:
Using NI software and hardware  to create an integrated test system that achieves quality test results  while reducing test development time and environmental impact.

"The key to choosing NI products for Panasonic was the  all-in-one compact enclosure, combinations of modules, the option to  easily add features depending on our needs, and the ability to develop a  program that has an intuitive graphical interface."

By raising our standards for our popular Toughbook PC to  meet the expectations of our customers, we continue our commitment to  quality and ease of use, and ensure domestic production and consistent  implementation of the circuit board assembly.

We work to quickly bring new notebook PC models and features to  market based on customer needs, and we have to constantly change test  systems to correlate with new products. In addition, we continue to add  features that make our notebook PCs ideal for mobile use, such as  lengthening the battery life and reducing weight. In particular, the  Toughbook is suited for fieldwork applications and manufactured to  endure 6 ft drops and withstand violent shocks and vibrations. They are  fabricated to operate at temperatures more than 140 °F and below -20 °F  and function at high altitude and under increased atmospheric pressure.  For the healthcare industry, we recently developed the mobile Tablet PC,  which can be kept clean with alcohol, and we are always trying to adopt  new ideas for durable materials.

We bring new Panasonic notebook PC models to the market every holiday  season. Because we carry out the development and production of  different models in parallel, mistakes at the end of production often  halt the progress of multiple models in development. Through domestic  production, we can quickly respond to development, manufacturing, sales,  and support issues.

Panasonic's Toughbooks are suitable for  fieldwork. The Panasonic Mobile PC is the most popular PC because of its  user-friendly interface and high-quality architecture. Panasonic  continues to meet the expectations of the user for a high-quality  screen.

Drawbacks of Our Previous Inspection System

Our previous test system inspected printed circuit boards (PCBs) by  mapping individual parameters to separate box instruments. As we  developed new features, we needed new box instruments. This approach was  very time-consuming and required a lot of development effort because of  the increasing number of instruments and energy footprint.

By carrying out the inspections during the production process, we can  test the efficiency and accuracy of the products, thus decreasing  potential mistakes and spikes in development time. Our overall goal is  to increase quality and reduce the time and cost to produce each unit.

New Test System Based on NI TestStand, LabVIEW, and PXI

In 2007, NI proposed an automated system that would suit our current  and future needs and improve the quality of inspection. We developed a  software-defined test system based on NI  TestStand, LabVIEW, and PXI modular instrumentation.  This new system reduced the development time and created a detailed  response to product inspection. Traditionally, our hardware operators  and software development program were divided, but LabVIEW required  minimal programming experience so our hardware operators could easily  use and understand the programs, reducing the cost of employee training.

The key to choosing NI products for Panasonic was the all-in-one  compact enclosure, combinations of modules, the option to easily add  features depending on our needs, and the ability to develop a program  that has an intuitive graphical interface. With NI products, tests can  be simple or complex, but always operate quickly to easily resolve  errors found during inspection.

Using LabVIEW and NI PXI modular instrumentation helped us understand  the features and programming for each instrument, improve the accuracy  of inspection, create a system built on integrated hardware and  software, and achieve higher levels of reliability and stability of the  inspection process.  The cost, in terms of efficiency and scalability,  for automated test systems has improved our Total Cost of Ownership  Development compared to a benchmark for other companies, in terms of  product cost and performance.

Author Information:

Takeuti  Isao
Chief Engineer, Plant Production Engineering  Team, Electronics Appliances