OLD BELIEFS AND NEW REALITIES
OF ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING
"When people understand, they don’t need refresher courses. Even better, they can identify opportunities for doing things better."
Many of the most common beliefs about proper practices in electronics manufacturing originated in the vacuum tube era. In the 21st century world of tiny solid state components and global competition, those beliefs cause serious harm. EMS solutions meet the new realities.
Some of the old beliefs and the new realities include:
Old Belief
Inspection is a good way to keep defects from reaching customers.
New Reality
Inspection adds costs and the extra handling causes damage. To stay in business, we must set up and manage our processes scientifically so they do not produce defects.
Old Belief
Training is the best way to make employees useful.
New Reality
People need education, not training. Training forces people to memorize rules, but memories fade (which is why training requires periodic retraining). Education helps people understand the reasons why some practices are good and others are not. When people understand, they don’t need refresher courses. Even better, they can identify opportunities for doing things better. Everyone needs the knowledge that allows them to:
- Work efficiently
- Not cause damage through improper handling
- Recognize when a process is running out of control
- Respond quickly and effectively to ensure the proper corrective action is taken
- Look for ways to improve processes (rather than placidly accepting the status quo in which they are trained)
Old Belief
The customer is always right
New Reality
Customers make mistakes, too. We must help the customer avoid any requirement that will be harmful to themselves.
Old Belief
Touchup and rework help make the product more reliable.
New Reality
Every time a soldering iron touches a component, the component suffers damage. The damage may cause the component to fail immediately but more often the failure will not occur until months or even several years later.
Old Belief
A general manager does not need to understand the manufacturing processes.
New Reality
Managers who do not understand the manufacturing processes are less likely to set and interpret appropriate performance metrics. It is harder to create suitable budgets. They are less likely to recognize or evaluate new opportunities for systems that would enhance the ability of the various plant departments to work together.
Old Belief
ISO (or TS or TL) certification proves we have good quality systems.
New Reality
Certification demonstrates ability to write good documents but not necessarily ability to keep improving reliability and driving down costs. Documentation is necessary to consistent processes but only part of an optimum quality system.
Old Belief
We must document everything we do.
New Reality
Too much documentation is counterproductive. Good documentation discards the trivial and concentrates on helping everyone understand how to do their job right. EMS Reliability Criteria is a good example of how to make a complex document (IPC–A–610) user friendly and effective.
Old Belief
Statistics and experiments are the best ways to learn about and improve our processes.
New Reality
- Experiments may determine the combination of process settings that will yield the lowest number of defects. But the experiments may not identify important unknown variables, including whether the PCB has been properly designed.
- The results of the experiment conducted with a flawed PCB layout may cause the company to use the flawed design as the rule for all future designs
- Experiments are costly; the first (and much cheaper) step should be a search to see if other people have answered the question that is the reason for the experiment
- Many issues require such large sample sizes that the experiment is impossible
Old Belief
The supplier is the best source of technical assistance.
New Reality
Many suppliers have eliminated technical support jobs to (temporarily) increase profits. But they still offer advice without explaining their knowledge limitations. And the goals of suppliers (to sell their products) may not be what is best for us. We must always know enough about the process and materials sciences to recognize when a supplier’s advice is not good advice.
Old Belief
Continuous improvement is the key to success.
New Reality
The competition may be making quantum improvements that could put us out of business.
Old Belief
Outsourcing production is good.
New Reality
Today’s supplier may be tomorrow’s competitor. But using contract manufacturing as a buffer to meet demand during peak sales periods does make sense.
Old Belief
Failures out of warranty don’t matter.
New Reality
Warranties only set the terms of our legal obligations to the customer. The customer may feel the warranty term reflects badly on us and we will never make another sale to that customer (or any of the customer’s friends).
Old Belief
Nobody has defect–free output so we won’t, either.
New Reality
If we know the science of our processes, we can have defect–free output. And so can our competitors, so we had better do it first.
Old Belief
The defect rate is the best measurement of process performance.
New Reality
A greater absolute number of predictable defects is often cheaper than a smaller number of random defects.
Old Belief
Automation is the best way for us to compete against cheap labor competitors.
New Reality
Eliminating process steps is the best way to compete against cheap labor competitors. Once a production step is automated, the costs of the equipment can’t be recovered even if the step is eliminated.
Old Belief
The amount of labor isn’t important.
New Reality
Every person in a factory makes it harder for managers to identify what is really happening in the factory. (And every piece of unnecessary equipment on the production floor also makes it harder to see what is happening in the plant.)
Old Belief
Just–in–time inventory is essential.
New Reality
Money isn’t nearly as expensive today as it was in the 1980s when J.I.T. became popular. There are still many good reasons for running with lower inventory but it’s easy to run up more costs than benefits with extreme J.I.T. today. All management strategies must adjust as economic conditions vary.
Everything we do at Electronics Manufacturing Sciences is designed to help clients meet the new realities rather than clinging to the old beliefs. For more information, please write or call (001)727–866–6502, ext. 21.
