Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1379105
34 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2021 mitment from Acme CEO, Mike Madigan, for more than enough business to fill the new line. So, if you know anyone looking for a job, have them contact me," she continued. "Before I continue, are there any questions?" Maggie asked. "Some of us feel like we could use some train- ing," a young fellow named Josh commented. "Let me handle that one," said John. "We plan on implementing several levels of train- ing for all employees. Our expectation is that we will be so busy with orders from customers that the training will require overtime, paid at time-and-a-half." is comment elicited more cheers. e meeting went on with comments and ques- tions for 30 minutes before Gramps Benson mentioned that there was pizza, salad, and drinks in the breakroom for all. While eating the pizza, most of the employ- ees came up to Maggie and John to congratu- late them and offer thanks for the good begin- ning. Aer a while, the folks went back to work and Maggie and John were le alone to chat. "Frank Emory, my MBA friend, said that aer a quick look at the books, it was obvious that there was one customer that was a stand- out in poor profit performance," John began. "Let me guess: Aqualine Industries," Maggie stated. "How did you know?" John asked. "Because they have insisted that Excelsior solder paste be used," Maggie replied. "We evaluated that paste at Acme; it has ter- rible response-to-pause, but it is the cheapest," John said. "Frank performed a cost analysis, with ProfitPro™ (Figure 1) and determined that if we used a paste like Maxima 78, we would save tens of thousands of dollars per month, even though Maxima 78 costs $0.03 per gram more." BE had a fixed price contract with Aqualine, so time lost to response-to-pause paste issues was absorbed by BE. "Let's switch to Maxima as soon as we can," Maggie suggested. "I guess now is the time for big changes, huh?" John said with a smile as he eyed Mag- gie's engagement ring. Maggie returned the smile and responded, "It most certainly is." Epilogue Excelsior was written into Aqualine's con- tract with BE, but the contract was old and the current purchasing manager at Aqualine had no problem with BE switching to Maxima as long as BE paid the solder paste price difference. Response-to-Pause On a regular basis, electronic assembly lines have to be "paused" to add components to the placement machines and other necessary steps needed to keep the lines running. During this pause period, some solder pastes stiffen and the first print on the stencil printer must be rejected. e lost time due to this issue seems small, maybe a few minutes in each event; however, it can quickly add up to hours over a week as shown in this example (Figure 1). Stay tuned for the next episode where Mag- gie, John, and the team address poor uptime. ree days earlier… Both Maggie and her now fiancé, John Isaa- cson, had always admired Professor Patty Coleman's engagement ring. It was unusual in that it was an emerald surrounded by two dia- monds. ey had taken Patty's course, "Materials: e Substance of Civilization." [1] In the course, Figure 1: Because Excelsior solder paste has poor response-to-pause, three hours of running time are lost each week. This lost time ends up costing BE more than $250K per year.