Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1513827
JANUARY 2024 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 9 the previous work, were not as specified, lead- ing to much of the guitar's maladjustment. Compare this to assessing a faulty assembled board. What parts need to be tested, removed, or replaced? How will reworking those parts of the board affect the performance? For my guitar, because of failures and bad repairs by the previous owner, all it needed was a second rework to put it right. Similarly, what does this look like in a test and inspection shop? Should an OEM or fabricator try to set up an in-house rework department, or is the time and money better spent just sending it straight to dedicated experts? My guitar project, just as with blemished board assemblies, required time-intensive rework. All that triage, disassembly, error res- olution, and re-assembly takes patience and skill; understanding the subtle interactions requires true expertise. It took my own experience and Ken's many years' of expertise to fix my guitar. Similarly, a rework department requires skilled tech- nicians, especially given the high degree of troubleshooting required to tackle cutting- edge repairs. My guitars aren't quite as tech- nical as circuit boards, but there are a lot of interrelated mechanical parts to deliver a good tone. Ken has been working on them since the 1960s; it's his lifelong profession. His body of knowledge is immense and soaking that up quickly helped me learn my way around. I got the reworked guitar into playable condition aer a couple of hours, but it took an entire evening of Ken's wisdom to go from good to great. at human expertise can only come from direct experience. at is where my guitar story and this issue's topic start to converge. Rework, regardless of the discipline, requires a whole lot of human expertise and dexterity. Unlike classic electric guitars, however, printed circuit board tech- nology advances quickly. at evolution like- wise constantly shis the balance between staffing for rework, hiring it out, or not doing Nolan Johnson is managing editor of SMT007 Magazine. Nolan brings 30 years of career experience focused almost entirely on electronics design and manufacturing. To contact Johnson, click here. it at all. Doing the build right the first time is the best strategy, of course, but we can rarely be fully 100%. In this issue, we highlight key areas across the rework discipline. We have a feature interview with Intel's Maria Mejias, who not only oversees production rework at Intel, but also contributes to rework recommendations passed down to Intel customers. e team at BEST, rework specialists, discusses the ROI dynamics in pursuing rework for your prod- ucts. BEST also contributes an article on their latest part removal method, cold milling. I include a technical paper from Essemtec, pub- lished at IPC APEX EXPO 2023, on novel methods for automatic repair. Of course, the obvious approach to rework efficiency is to have no rework at all. at's where Delvitech's AI AOI, and Hanwha's port- folio of assembly equipment come into play. Our band of columnists pick up the rework beat as well. Michael Ford examines the cur- rent state of rework and sees a business oppor- tunity; Mike Konrad delivers a comprehen- sive overview that, while valuable for all read- ers, should be especially helpful to readers less familiar with rework. Rounding out the band this month, we have Jennie Hwang's ongo- ing series on critical materials, IPC CEO John Mitchell, and Ron Lasky's latest Maggie Ben- son installment. In the end, refurbishing cost me very little in parts, but it did require that I make mechanical changes to the placement of the bridge on the guitar body. Comparable, I guess, to remov- ing a part and resoldering it with correct place- ment—almost all the cost of the rework was in the labor. SMT007