Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1197000
42 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2020 Carmichael: Our job is to support the industry and our member companies in the industry. We have more members in this show this year than we did last year when we were a co-spon- sor. Part of my job is to make sure all of our member participants are happy and getting the treatment that they want. So far, everybody is pretty happy, so that's good. Matties: Recently, the Hand Soldering World Championship was held at productronica. Carmichael: Yes, there were 11 competitors from Asia Pacific and seven other competitors, primarily from Europe and Asia. The cham- pion was from Indonesia, where I'm headed tomorrow to visit. We have a custom that the winning HSC company gets a visit from one of the IPC senior executives. We bring along the local government and some other people as well to help give them good PR. That has helped support their continued involvement in what we're doing. Matties: It's great to see how the hand solder- ing competition has been elevated in the world, and in this region in particular. Carmichael: We will have an event at the Shanghai productronica show too. Again, we are no longer a co-partner with the HKPCA show, but we are partnered with MMI and the productronica show both in Shanghai and in Shenzhen, so you will see more of our activities in March. The day before the show opens, we'll have a very in-depth tech- nical seminar. It's the China Electronic Man- ufacturing Annual Conference, which is an IPC-sponsored event. It's similar to maybe SummerCom in the U.S. and will have tech- nical speakers and some standards activities on March 17. Matties: Is this open to members and non- members alike? Carmichael: Yes, our goal is participation from the industry. We'd like to see as many people attend as possible. Matties: Is there anything we haven't talked about that you feel we should still share with the industry about what's going on in this region? Carmichael: We had a CFX demo last year in Shenzhen and another one this year that made a product on 20 pieces of interconnected equipment. It started with a bare board and ended with a finished board with no human intervention. Our next goal is to have sev- eral members working on converting their existing facilities into CFX lines. You need to bridge from the standard to your equipment. Some software writing is required, but we're assisting a couple of companies in doing that. I expect that early next year, we'll be able to announce at least a couple of facto- ries who are going to be fully CFX integrated. That's almost a science fiction approach to things, where you have a factory running and machines talking to each other and resup- plying components and materials. Nobody is involved on the floor; it's only the machines, and that's a huge change. Matties: And over 300 companies are partici- pating in CFX. IPC has done a good job getting it into the industry and making it a reality. Carmichael: Work always has to be done to go from a standard language to executing it into a factory, but that's where we're at right now. We're working on that. Part of my job is to make sure all of our member participants are happy and getting the treatment that they want. So far, everybody is pretty happy, so that's good.