With the reduction of per order/batch quantities, one wonders whether it’s more profitable to purchase SMT components in reel or tube packing.
By purchasing in tubes, it’s possible to order the strictly necessary number of parts, whilst the reels often impose far more high quantities. Furthermore, components in reels have normally a slightly higher price.
By making a global assessment (both qualitative and economic), reel packaging is more profitable in most cases, no matter the lower purchasing cost for components in tubes.
The use of tubes, forces the operators to continuously replace the empty with new ones, this leads, for some equipment, to a mounting stop. On the other hand, instead, a reel is in place until its depletion.
Another point is that tubes can easily be misplaced, leading to possible components reversal. It is also possible that despite tube feeders have vibration devices, components can be framed in the tube preventing them from mounting.
Another problem, when using tubes, is the fact that the assemblers, against hundreds of reel feeders, own a few tube feeders only.
The convenience of reel packaged parts is so high that parts purchased in tubes are often “reeled”.