Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1493016
REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2023 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I I-CONNECT007 73 REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2023 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I I-CONNECT007 73 was the key to making CFX happen. Every- body has been working toward the standard; not once did we have discussions where indi- vidual interests stood over the more important industry interests. Do you recall any special moments with your committee? Recently there was a really good discussion about bringing in data to measure perfor- mance impacts on machine performance. It was based on input by an electronics manufac- turer. On our committee, many different angles or views of industry are repre- sented. There was someone from a data analytics company, and another colleague doing pick- and-place machines similar to my company. Suddenly we all ended up in a discussion, saying things like, "Okay, yes, we understand the requirement, but wouldn't it be better to do it like this?" The discussion was creative and ended with an excellent solution. It's now in CFX 1.6 and I think this electronics manufacturer, as well as many oth- ers, will be happy about this. CFX is obviously very exciting. Anything else about the industry that's very exciting right now? There's sure a lot going on. The biggest topic is digitalization. We need industrial IoT for that, the stream of data has to be plug and play so that we can focus on creating solutions with customer value and no longer have to worry about how to connect. As simply as I connect a mouse or camera to my notebook, I can connect a data analytics appli- cation to my machine. So, if electronics manu- facturers like an application you show to them, they can connect other machines immediately. This is happening with CFX as the plug-and- play industry standard and hence I expect CFX to play a big role in digitalization of the SMT industry. That's great. What advice would you give to someone, say, at their first IPC meeting? Always be open for collaboration. Accept the views of different players in the game and then try to find the best solution. Compromise among everyone is key for an industry stan- dard. It doesn't work if it's "my" standard; oth- erwise, it cannot be used by others. My advice is to be open to collaboration and get away from the company proprietary standards. I'm always comparing this to Bill Gates' vision of Win- dows for PCs—having everything at your fingertips, and you never need to worry about whether the software will be working on dif- ferent equipment; you can just develop your application. We need something similar in the SMT industry, and CFX can be a key to that with its plug-and-play ability. Then we can go beyond the SMT industry to include everybody in the electronics industry. There is a scholarship associated with this award. Have you thought about the school or university you would like to give that to? Yes, I thought about giving it to the University of Karlsruhe/Karlsruher Institut for Technol- ogy (KIT), located in the southwestern part of Germany, where I got my education. I had a really great time there, I got a very good educa- tion, and I want someone else to now benefit from that. Very good. Thanks so much for your time and, again, congratulations. S&T Dieter Bergman IPC Fellowship Award