IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
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11 GEN3 have been IPC members since 1994. Based in the United Kingdom and operating as a family business, it is a diversified engineering company active in the electronics indus- try. We spoke to Graham Naisbitt, president, about the founding of GEN3, its successes and challenges, and how the company benefits from its membership in IPC. Graham, what's your company story? GEN3 is a third-generation family business op- erating for over 50 years. The business was found- ed by my father, Arthur Naisbitt (Generation 1), who operated in the world of heavy engineering. The company has operated on a dynastic basis and has enjoyed sustained growth throughout our IPC membership years. We are proud to be British and to export more than 75% of our products all around the world. I'm Generation 2 and I spent my first 25 years working in major multinational companies, Fives Group of France, and Babcock International in Germany and the UK. The disciplines learned have been put to good use in a small family business. Our third generation, An- drew Naisbitt, joined the business full-time in 2010 and assumed management in 2020 because of the lockdown. The pandemic ne- cessitated structural change: Andrew was promoted to CEO, and I took the role of president (chairman). What does your company do that you're most proud of? In 1987, when the research was begun to find alternatives to CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons, Freon, etc.), and to the introduction of no-clean fluxes, the only way to determine acceptable levels of "clean- liness" was found to be measures of changes to in- sulation resistance. AutoSIR (Automated precision Surface Insulation Resistance) was born. In 1995, the manufacturing rights to AutoSIR were offered to Concoat (now GEN3) and we set about intro- ducing new standards for the industry using SIR. In 2002, we helped introduce a new Internation- al Standard through ISO that was the precursor to all that followed in both IEC and IPC. As president of GEN3, I was the first of six Britons to be honoured with the Lord Kelvin IEC 1906 award, which I re- ceived in 2006, for my work in developing SIR as a test method for the electronics industry and spon- sored by IPC legend Dieter Bergman. How has the electronics industry changed over the years, and what has your company done to keep pace with the changes? We came into the electronics industry in 1979 and have wit- ness ed s ome interesting changes. We recall being advised in 1980 that sur- f a c e m o u n t t e c h n o l o g y would completely replace "through-hole" techniques. It would be fair to say, 40 years later, that hasn't come true. H oweve r, a s o u r b u s i n e s s was primarily involved with Humi- Seal conformal coatings, these mate- rials have seen an ever-increasing market to help deal with fine pitch, SMT, and tin whiskers, as well as to mitigate the effects of electrochemical migration (ECM). To "stay in the game," we firmly believe that you must be directly involved with research and stan- dards development. Hence, we collaborated with IVF in Sweden from 1987 to 2005, NPL since 1989 through the present, and most recently, with the High Density Packaging Users Group (HDPUG), where we are leading a new research project into Low Voltage <2V SIR testing. We are involved with the European Centre for Power Electronics (ECPE) Three generations (clockwise from top left): Alasdair and Andrew Naisbitt; their father Graham Naisbitt (seated right), and Arthur Naisbitt.