Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1035071
50 SMT007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2018 The topic this month is the Connected Factory Exchange (CFX)—the IPC initiative for manu- facturers to become smart factories. From my understanding, the underlying thought for CFX is communication from business to machine and machine back to business. CFX will help streamline parts of the assembly process related to supply and projected throughput. But how will CFX help with reliability? As someone who works more often on the back end of the assembly process diagnosing failures or qualifying the assembly process to specific requirements, I have no idea. I can tell you that in both of those avenues, commu- nication is key. The need for communication between every operator on the floor can be a critical difference between a reliable piece of hardware and one that presents some level of unexpected performance. Every time an oper- ator does something out of the ordinary in the assembly process, doesn't make a note of it in a way that can be traced back to the PCBA by its serial number, and that piece of hardware comes back for a performance issue, it is very easy to be lumped into the dreaded "no trou- ble found" (NTF). Since I don't have a strong tie to speak directly to reliability and CFX, I will instead cover a few things not commonly communicated, which can cause performance issues. Touch-up soldering is something I have seen many times during regular process audits. The assembly comes off the reflow or wave solder equipment, and the inspector sees something that doesn't meet the requirement. Easy fix, right? Just grab some wire and fix the solder Are You Connected to Reliability? Quest for Reliability Feature Column by Eric Camden, FORESITE