Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1424540
40 SMT007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2021 derstand what these things are really doing to the process. Spend your testing dollars wisely. Your people are doing tests and inspection, whether that's their role or you understand it. ey're watching the process and the ma- chines. ey're watching the components and looking at the trays. As you pull people out, you're limited to the inputs that the machines have, whether it's cameras, test beds, or what- ever it happens to be. You're limited to just those inputs. ere's no intuitiveness to it. You set up what your inputs are, the upper and low- er control limits, and that's all you get. You lose a little piece of that insight when the humans are removed. To me, the key concern with going automat- ed is that most people just slap on more test- ing: "Let's just test more." at's the approach people are taking, and it's a good one. It's just that you have to carefully understand what you're losing by pulling the humans out. Johnson: With more automation, more testing, and the limitations of what automated equip- ment can do for testing, the how of presenting the results back to the operator, the engineer, or the product manager becomes crucial— turning the data into analysis. Neves: Correct. It's overwhelming. You have an Excel spreadsheet with 100,000 data points in it. How do you turn that into something that a manager, who has very little understand- ing of the actual process, can decide on? Hav- ing data is not an end-all. You have to take the data, summarize it, and present it in a way that is easily understandable for people who don't understand the process intuitively. Johnson: Right, you have to cook it. Neves: It's just like the old SPC charts we used to put on the wall. Are you collecting the right detail, the right frequency, the right amount of depth? If you're looking at the ocean, and you're only checking the first three feet, what does that tell you? "Sure, it's wet. It's good down three feet." But you're not seeing the whole thing. For the board manufacturers, there's some automation, but I think the EMS guys are the ones who have pushed the automation for- ward. Boards are still basically made the same way I made them eons ago. ere's less hu- man handling between the processes, but I wouldn't call that full automation. I would just call that smart design. "I put my two machines right next to each other. I put a little convey- or between the two. Right, yeah, wow." I don't know if that's automation, whereas with the EMS guys, that really has changed. Johnson: Bob, thanks for all the insight. SMT007 Bob Neves is chairman/CTO of Microtek Laborato- ries China, and vice chair of the board at IPC. Bob Neves at Microtek's Changzhou facility.