Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1337116
16 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2021 What are their price breaks for that compo- nent? It's all inside that component now. It's not the old days anymore. ere's another great point I would like to make. ere needs to be a signing off the foot- print, and of the process. It's amazing that peo- ple's memory doesn't last more than six months when it comes to the mistakes that they make. ey say, "I didn't approve that." But I reply, "Okay, well, there's your signature." And some of the solutions involved are going to be, first, biting a really difficult bullet for some peo- ple. at's because it needs changing, and people don't want to change. Matties: When you talk about the root cause, how are they going to identify the root cause? What process would you use? Watson: I would go through the five whys. at's how I get to the root cause of an issue. You look at the problem and ask why it happened. en you go back one step, and ask why that happened? Let me give you an example. If my battery was dead in my car, my first question is, why is my bat- tery dead? e answer to that question is my alternator was not charging my battery. Okay, why wasn't my alternator charging my battery? Because of a loose belt on the alternator. But why was there a loose belt on the alternator? Well, because I haven't replaced it for five years. So why haven't you replaced it for five years? You keep walking back through the problem like that and you go back five whys and you start getting into the root cause. I go back to the fih reason and find out I don't follow the maintenance schedule on my vehicle. So that's where you begin. ere are different systems like that. And fishbone charts can help you fig- ure out what your root causes are. Matties: When you talk about market changes, how do they affect footprints? Watson: e only effects of the market on the footprint would probably be big swings. I know when we went to solderless, the solderless man- ufacturing had a big impact on footprints and solderability. We saw how the market trend- ing affected how the footprint was, but these are going to be common changes; maybe not common, but these will be changes in the mar- ket, and there will be changes that happen in footprints. Like I mentioned about IPC, they suggested, "Okay, now let's round off your corners." So, they put out the general direction to improve the footprint. IPC is really strong on that side of it, to watch what is affect- ing the footprint. e other thing is just that the effect is more how those components are controlled and managed. How do you handle these changes? ere are always going to be changes, so how you han- dle those changes is what's more important. How do you implement the changes? How do you go ahead and make a change on a footprint, for example? It goes back into the QC process. Make sure that the change was correct, and that it's done right. en you take it back into the prototype stage, put a real component on that part, put it under a microscope, look at the solder joints and things like that, and understand what looks good; that's the way it should be. Matties: What's a typical timeline for that pro- cess? Is that a day or a couple of weeks? Watson: No, it could be within a day. It's very easy. It's a very good process.