Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1163814
32 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2019 Feature Interview by Andy Shaughnessy I-CONNECT007 During the IPC Summer Meetings and Panel- palooza in Raleigh, North Carolina, I met with Leo Lambert, vice president and director of technology at EPTAC. We discussed IPC's re- cent efforts to revamp the way standards are developed and interpreted as well as changes to training and education committees and a va- riety of methods for eliminating errors and du- plicated comments when revising standards. Andy Shaughnessy: Another day, another show, Leo. You're the chair for a couple of com- mittees, so can you tell us what your commit- tees have been doing at the summer meetings? Leo Lambert: Back in the day, I was the chair of the J-STD-001 task group of the Assembly and Joining Committee; now, I'm the chair of the IPC-A-600 Committee. IPC is reorganizing and taking a look at the way the standards are be- ing developed, the way the standards are inter- preted, and how the test programs are going to be conducted. There are also new sets of poli- cies, rules, and procedures for the training pro- grams—one for CIT/MIT, one for CIS, and one for CSE—which everyone is anticipating. They have released the initial version, but there are still corrections that need to be addressed and implemented. In the meantime, this delay creates a lot of angst for the people who are using them, and we had a meeting this morning on some of those issues. Today, we had training meet - ings, which are very important to the devel- opment of the programs; however, everyone wants to attend all of the meetings. Therefore, with so many people involved, it is difficult to reach a consensus in a short period of time since everyone has some input and want to be heard. I understand wanting to attend all of the meetings, but then you realize that there are only so many hours in the day, so it is slow-moving. Since we're involved in the training business, we need to go to the training meetings because that's the material that we're going to be using and presenting to the students. Additionally, there are many mistakes in those documents that must be corrected, and the new IPC orga- nization is addressing all of these. However, it will take time and patience. These errors are repeated at each training program by all of the So Many Standards Committees, So Little Time Leo Lambert