Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1518339
56 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2024 mindset. It's not so possible to say, "I'll solder this cup really quick." Now, it's more like, "I'll make sure that I have the proper gold removal process, and that my soldering iron temps and tips are calibrated." You might not neces- sarily pay attention to those steps unless you have something that explicitly tells you to pay attention. It's more documentation, too. Many engineering resources go into developing and maintaining all of that to ensure that you're delivering a consistently high-quality product. With that extra overhead, what's the payoff? Why do it? e payoff is that it's ultimately a better-qual- ity product. For any industry, it's imperative. In aerospace, specifically, we are under scrutiny more oen to ensure we have the best of the best. It's the same with automotive and EVs. Right now, there's a push to make sure we're maintaining the same quality standards for high voltage and new environments for electron- ics applications. e payoff is that once you build it up, you now have this wonderfully transferable skill set that you can apply to any product line in your factory. So much attention is paid to supply chain resilience and traceability. OEM cus- tomers request and expect an understanding of what's in the supply chain, from the raw materi- als and even the copper mine. The documentation you mentioned is now critical. Here's an example: We use an adhesive that underwent a color change. It originally was typically light green, then suddenly it was closer to a camouflage green. Our inspectors were flagging it, and of course, our customer was concerned. We traced it back to the epoxy manufacturer, which had started getting its raw materials from a quarry a quarter-mile further down the road. e rock they were grinding as an additive to the epoxy caused a color change. We had to go all the way up through these extra approvals because a change in rock shied the color of our epoxy. We had an extensive discus- sion answering questions such as, "Is it okay? Do we need that type of rock? Are the perfor- mance characteristics going to be the same?" Having the traceability to go from the OEM level all the way back to that quarry was crit- ical. How are manufacturing processes changing in wiring harnesses? Is it still being done the same way everyone imagines, or are new approaches making it more effective, efficient, precise, and profitable? It depends, and I've been seeing a couple of different things. ere is a new Appendix D in IPC/WHMA-A-620 that I helped develop. You'll see the kudos to Team Bones (our A-Team) on the acknowledgments page in IPC/WHMA-A-620. is appendix discusses X-ray guidelines. Some suppliers are starting to incorporate X-ray inspection of final product. Depending on how you look at it, it can be good because it gives us new information. But because we don't have hard requirements for accept- ability using X-ray inspec- tion, we don't know how to apply the new information to current practices. For example, if we see something on an X-ray image, what does it mean for the acceptability of our hardware? We've seen that come up more in the last few years. In the industry, we are also trying to shi toward more automation. In some cases, that's worked out well for higher-volume products. But fully automated processes don't always make sense for low-volume work, like for aero- space, where we might make 10 to 100 a year. Let's say you've got a machine for injecting pot- ting or molding material into a fixture. What happens when you don't have production for a The payoff is that it's ultimately a better-quality product.