Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1367446
10 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2021 Feature Interview by Nolan Johnson I-CONNECT007 Nolan Johnson speaks with Teresa Rowe, IPC senior director of assembly and standards technology, who breaks down the structure and major functions of an IPC committee and the collaborative effort that goes on behind the scenes to make it all work. Nolan Johnson: Teresa, you are IPC's leading expert on committee organization and struc- ture. How does IPC organize all of these 135 or so committees and groups? Teresa Rowe: e committees are structured around general committees. We have a series of task groups that fall under a general com- mittee with a subject behind it such as "printed board design," "assembly joining" or "prod- uct assurance." ose large areas are then bro- ken down into smaller subcommittees and task groups where the work is done. For example, a task group may be on quality assurance on electronic assemblies, or acceptability of elec- tronic assemblies. We have leaders from the industry for these general committees, and they are part of our Technical Activities Exec- utive Committee (TAEC). e TAEC is the management function related to the technical activities with IPC, and they are overseen by a much smaller group called the TAEC Global. e TAEC Global is comprised of seven people—two from the Americas, two from the European region, and two from the Asia Pacific region, along with the TAEC chair. ese people meet with IPC quarterly, and they look at the health and the activities of the task groups, advise IPC on where we should put our standards focus, and help us understand what the industry is doing. Johnson: It sounds like work on standards and work on steering. Some committees are oriented more toward outreach or advocacy, correct? Rowe: Yes, as long as we think about it from the perspective that standards could be guidelines, they could be requirements for the product, or they could be test methods for the product. The Structure Behind IPC Committees