Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1345210
30 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2021 analysis then help establish agenda priorities during onsite audits and can be correlated with production issues, or most importantly used to predict a production issue and resolve it before it occurs. Benefits to the PCB Buyer/PCB Assembly Manufacturer We see numerous benefits from sponsoring and sharing the test results of a third-party test vehicle such as PCQR 2 . • Removes subjective sourcing. Technical capabilities are established and advanced through objective metrics customized to our products' needs. • Helps weed out suppliers who do not support SPC/CIP in their corporate culture. e test panels are designed to show the limits of a vendor's production capabilities and processes. Vendors that do not use statistical process control (SPC) cannot maintain consistency from lot to lot and submission to submission, and those without capital investment stagnate or fall backward in their test results. ese objective measurements supplement audit results when deciding to address or disen- gage from a struggling supplier. • Drives supplier quality. Figure 6 shows PCB PPM reject trending down as the technical capability of our suppliers (represented by the average layer count of PCQR 2 submissions) increases. • Reduces R&D time to market. Any vendor that quotes a board has already demonstrated their ability to repeatedly and consistently build that type of board. • Right source/right price. If technical capability is not an underlying concern, R&D purchase managers can focus on price as a deciding factor, helping drive business to lower-cost suppliers where the technology fits. • Drives supplier competitiveness. We share generic results with all our suppliers, so they know where they stand relative to their peers. • Drives supplier technology and process improvements. Quality issues can be correlated with weaknesses or slips in test results. Likewise, the benefits of suppliers' capital and process improvements can be tangibly demonstrated in their improved performance. • Increases customer satisfaction. More products built through reliable and demonstrated processes means fewer failures and fewer escapes, leading to fewer field failures and customer returns. • Keeps manufacturing costs down. Reli- able products have fewer manufacturing issues and require less NCMR process- ing and out-of-sequence work. More- over, using a third-party test vehicle is less expensive than developing an internal one. • Helps find new suppliers. e test results are typically shared between all test spon- sors, so we can see the results of all test submissions, not just those we sponsored. Figure 5: Example of trend analysis.