Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1276973
82 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2020 probably a lot of designers who may not have an equal under- standing or access to training across all of them. To that end, in your opinion, what do board designers need across Italy or at least in your area in Milan? What problems might be solved by better cooperation across these smaller companies and designers? Vergine: If you ask designers in general, they rarely admit to their limits. But I see that there is a lack of knowledge in terms of the flow of design informa- tion from the designer to the manufacturer. There are different scenarios. As for the big companies, most of them are frac- tured into divisions, and who does the sche- matic is very often not involved in the deci- sions regarding the PCB. You can imagine what may happen. Crawford: Absolutely. That's a lot of emails to solve a simple problem if it does get solved before a design is completed. Vergine: In the case of smaller companies, unless they do very high-end products, they normally rely on what the PCB manufacturer or assembler tells them regarding the materi- als and assembly processes. In some cases, the designer does not even know the potential issues they may face until they do a function- ality test, or worse, it only randomly works. Of course, I am telling you the worst-case sce- nario. We have excellent designers, and they are usually extreme experts. Crawford: I understand, and I would hate to generalize an entire nation of board design- ers. But I also understand that there can be issues with the information flow, and I think that this is common in most markets—not only in Italy. There are technical solutions to this, including standards that streamline how com- plex information is transmitted within the sup- ply chain. An example of that would be the IPC-2581 DPMX standard for communicating design-to-fab product informa- tion. Speaking of communica- tion, how well does the supply chain play nice? Is there a lot of competition? Vergine: Because the market is relatively small, competition is very high, and I do not only mean from the competing design services point of view. There is also a bit of competition within the larger companies them- selves: "What I know is my power, so why should I share it with you?" Do you see what I mean? Crawford: I do, and that is definitely not unique to Italy. However, I'm not sure how we can standardize ourselves out of that one. But maybe through education on sound design techniques and methodology that is avail- able to everyone, regardless of their station at their respective job, we can decrease that delta in understanding and make all designers more competitive. During our Design Commu- nity Leadership meetings, we have all agreed that this kind of education doesn't necessar- ily have to be didactic; there are opportunities to enhance your skills through an open forum with other designers, experiential learning, etc. That brings me to the topic of the day—the Italian IPC Design Chapter. How can a coop- erative program like IPC Design help designers in Italy? Vergine: As we only started advertising our chapter a couple of weeks ago, we are still see- ing affiliations and have not had the oppor- tunity to meet. However, as I ask people to contact me in order to affiliate, the feedback I am receiving is that this is really a laudable initiative. For the reasons that I mentioned, the designer community is missing the networking and sharing of information to make everyone competitive. Knowledge is power. Pietro Vergine