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78 SMT007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2020 As I mentioned in Part 1 of this column series, during the past two decades, there has been a tremendous increase in outsourcing by OEMs to EMS companies, which also results in a decrease in yield. I further discussed the overview of an audit process to assess the man- ufacturing capability of OEMs or EMS compa- nies. In this column, I will focus on the tech- nology and manufacturing capabilities of the supplier. Even though I am dividing the questions into various areas—namely technology, man- ufacturing, quality, and RoHS compliance— there are going to be overlaps. However, it is not important which category these questions fall into, but they should be asked. They are intended to help generate questions that are relevant to your product and the manufactur- ing site you plan to audit. Manufacturing Questions There are some business-related questions aimed at determining the supplier's finan- cial stability, long-term viability as a business, pricing policy, and quality standard to be used. They should be asked. You should also ask about the production capacity of the line and the percentage of that capacity available for your products to see if there is a match. I am not covering these business areas in this series of columns; instead, I'll focus only on the tech- nical areas. You can begin by asking about the types of components used in various products being built by the company today and the level of defects (PPMO and first-pass % yield) in those products. The answer to this one question will give a good general overview of the assem- bler's capability. How to Audit OEM-EMS Assembly Capability, Part 2 SMT Solver by Ray Prasad, RAY PRASAD CONSULTANCY GROUP