Success Takes More Than Technical Mastery

The technical aspects of soldering are essential to success, of course. However, technical competence alone will not take the company to maximum performance. Superior communication and psychology are also essential.

Effective communication means everyone — managers, engineers and operators — use exactly the same words for exactly the same purposes. For example, "solderability" is a commonly used word in most plants but it means different things to different people; consequently, troubleshooting exercises often fail because different individuals understand the problem in different ways even though they are all using exactly the same word.

Ensuring that the terminology accurately reflects the condition is another requirement. "Cold solder" is a common example of a counterproductive term. Different people use the term to describe varying cosmetic conditions and that makes basic communication impossible. In addition, however, virtually none of the conditions described as "cold solder" are caused by lack of heat.

EMS Science of Soldering© develops a common, scientifically accurate vocabulary throughout the plant. The result is more effective communication and addressing the real process issues. That doesn't happen with solder training.

For more than a quarter of a century, clients of Electronics Manufacturing Sciences have been enjoying some very special results such as:

• Much higher output using many fewer workers and without special equipment
  
  
• Fewer demands on management time
  
  
• Faster throughput
  
  
• Exceptionally low failure rates
  
  
• Dramatic reductions in tools and materials costs
  
  
• Freed up factory floor space
  
  
• Happier customers
  
  
• Higher profits

All this occurs in large part because they focused on one fundamental objective: better soldering. And they invested in the radically unconventional management, quality and engineering solutions of EMS Science of Soldering.

Soldering Must be a Priority

Soldering is the heart of electronics manufacturing. It is also the least understood process and the most common cause of product failures.

Soldering involves a small number of fairly simple chemical, physical and metallurgical forces. Unfortunately, the electronics industry has changed a rather straightforward science into an incomprehensible collection of myths and legends. The difficulty is made worse by training (telling people what to do) rather than educating (showing why).

Soldering isn’t something that attracts much attention. But here are just a few reasons why soldering must be every company’s priority:

• All the people after machine soldering — the inspectors, touchup operators, repair personnel, even some test technicians — are employed to find and fix soldering problems
  
  
• Wages for the employees involved in those activities are only a small portion of the total cost. The employees require supervision, training, payroll services, floor space, tools, clothing, materials, safety procedures and much more
  
  
• The handling involved in finding and fixing defects increases the processing time. It may even be necessary to ship output by air if there is a delay in the processing
  
  
• The handling (especially the use of soldering irons) damages the assemblies
  
  
• Expensive processes like cleaning and conformal coating can be eliminated by making some changes in the soldering chemicals
  
  
• Supervisors, managers and executives spend much of their working time in meetings to resolve quality problems caused by poorly selected components, chemicals and handling

And the list goes on.

EMS Science of Soldering©

More than a quarter of a century ago, we recognized some fundamental problems about the state of soldering in electronics manufacturing. The problems are as real today as they were in 1981, including:

• Every electronics manufacturing plant has soldering problems (defects, inefficiencies, excessive costs of materials or equipment)
  
  
• Few plants realize they are underperforming because they are comparing themselves to competitors whose processes are exactly the same and are also underperforming
  
  
• Knowledge was confined to a few specialists rather than spread throughout the company
  
  
• Many of the problems are organizational — such as lecturing rather than educating — rather than technical
  
  
• The problems exist even though soldering is a fairly simple science
  
  
• Many common standards and practices are needlessly complicated (too much irrelevant “information” and impossible evaluation expectations), outdated and just plain wrong
  
  
• Training harms the individual and the company
  
  
• There is no single source for a simple yet satisfactorily comprehensive education in the science of soldering
  
  
• The people in the company — such as operations managers, purchasing managers and human resources managers — who affect the soldering process are often not understood to be critical to the process and needing knowledge to properly support the processes
  
  
• Critical technical words mean different things to different people; the jargon gets in the way of effective meetings and decision–making

We dedicated ourselves to creating the teaching tools and support materials that would:

• Make soldering simple
  
  
• Allow anyone to understand the core science, and
  
  
• Break down the organizational barriers to success

The result is EMS Science of Soldering©.  

Education Through Experiments and Demonstrations

EMS Science of Soldering© is genuine education. Through experiments and demonstrations, the course explains the essential science, exposes the myths, and develops a powerful “recipe” for perfect soldering.

The course teaches by troubleshooting a complex hands–on soldering process problem. In solving the problem (which involves several causes rather than a single root cause), the class learns the critical scientific forces that control all soldering from simple hand soldering to the most complex machine soldering.

Every class — for engineers, operators and managers — begins with this basic knowledge development. Engineering sessions then go into the science in greater detail and explain machine soldering and process management while operators go on to further skills development and understanding reliability criteria.. The result is that everyone in the company shares the same basic knowledge and terminology. The result is vastly more effective communication.

The engineering classes proceed to development of machine soldering processes and process management systems that prevent defects rather than allowing process mistakes and hoping inspection will find the defects. Data collection and use of data in process management are also examined.

Management sessions proceed to setting goals, budgeting, measuring performance, quality systems, managing customers, and selecting and managing suppliers.

EMS Science of Soldering isn’t just about the moment when liquid metal is applied to components.

Yes, EMS Science of Soldering does make control of the soldering process easy. But it also improves inter–departmental communication, develops problem–solving skills, generates curiosity and a willingness to question every aspect of the organization. In short, it does everything lean manufacturing wants to do but EMS Science of Soldering works much faster and more effectively than generic lean because the approach is specific to electronics manufacturing.

EMS Science of Soldering is not like anything you have ever experienced. It is so different that the only way to truly appreciate how and why it works is by experiencing it. For more information, including our unique risk–free guarantee, please write or call (01)727–866–6502 extension 21.