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24 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2024 Walk through the entrance at Zentech Dallas and you'll see a wall of certification plaques prominently displayed. Beyond being impressive and a point of pride, these cert- ifications tell a story to potential customers: is company is ready to do business. Charlie Capers, former vice president and general manager, shares his insights on quantifying the ROI of certifications. You may not see it on paper, but it's definitely there. He also talks about his expectations for new hires and shares a case study about the importance of collaborating with your PCB designers. Barry Matties: Charlie, it was impressive to walk through the Dallas facility and see all those certifications. How has Zentech fit those into the business model? How does Zentech quantify that as an ROI? Charlie Capers: As an employer, certifications are a prerequisite for our technicians who want to work on hand soldering and reworking printed circuit boards. We want to know that they have the skill level necessary to do the rework, the touch-up, or whatever it may be, per the spec, and that they have the skill and the knowledge to do it correctly. If they don't have those specific certifications before we hire them, we'll give them a live test to see whether they can actually do what they say they can. If they qualify and we hire them, they'll do the testing, get the certification, and then get their name up on the wall for our next round of certifications, which is usually biannual. It is pretty impressive, like you said, when you have all those certifications hanging on the wall and you bring a customer through. ey Getting Clear About Certification With Charlie Capers Feature Interview by the I-Connect007 Editorial Team