Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1305670
46 SMT007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2020 to us, looking for a solution, and we can pro- vide it. The perfect customer can vary, but we can support customers with a little bit differ- ent needs and ultimately find them a solution to get a better product at less cost. Johnson: Bert, any parting words from you? Horner: A customer who doesn't play well with our service is one who does not have the abil- ity to change. We deal with some of those folks too. They buy the tool and the reporting and put it on the shelf. They're not able to uti- lize the feedback to go to process. They'll say, "Lesson learned," but it needs to be a constant level of tweaking. With Will's discussion about the DPMO, that's something that's an art, and I don't think a lot of production groups have the abil- ity to grasp that number, and that modeling has to have a level of intensity. It's one thing to program an in-circuit tester and one thing to program SMD equipment; it's another to really understand the manufacturing process and being able to get that understanding where your possible faults could occur. As you move toward higher volume, you're going to be dealing with something a lot dif- ferent than building up 20 boards of this type and building 20 of that. It's a high mix of vol- ume versus high volume and no mix or low mix. Those are two different spectrums. If they don't have an understanding of that, this tool could fall flat on its face. And I don't care what tool you have, you must have that champion, or you have to have a management champion for something like this. Johnson: The success depends on the attitude brought by management. Horner: In some, it can be done by manage- ment, but it could be the customer too. If I say, "Company X's prices are really good at building these assemblies," I'm not pushing you to do it better, quicker, faster, and smarter. They might respond, "I'll just keep slapping these boards up, and if one out of 20 fails, that's what it is. C'est la vie! I'm always going to have 1 out of 20 that fails." That would be versus somebody that's building a thousand of them because OEMs have their name on the product. How many times have you said, "I'm never going to buy from Company X again because that tool I bought constantly dies, has no bat- tery life, or whatever the problem is?" That company has the bad name now, not the CM. The OEM at that level has to embrace their name and the CM because if they lose their customer—whether they go out of business, etc.—they shoot themselves in the foot. You must have that champion. Johnson: Thank you, gentlemen. Webb: Thanks for having us. SMT007