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8 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2025 Marcy's Musings Column by Marcy LaRont, I-CONNECT007 The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection Few things in this world are or will ever be perfect. For me, perfection might look like the vivid colors that only Mother Nature can cre- ate, the birth of a child, and the inner workings of the human brain. But all else in this physical, tangible world is, in one way or another, inher- ently flawed. Even the "flawless" diamond is more about the sheer awe and beauty of behold- ing near-perfection than perfection itself. In many ways, this truth provides great texture and diversity to our world. Yet, we still strive for per- fection, and it's in this that we learn and achieve higher heights than we otherwise would have. In manufacturing, this pursuit of perfection first became widely evident when Japanese car manufacturers overtook their American coun- terparts and became the automobiles of choice in the U.S. market. e production methods used by the Japanese allowed them to achieve superior quality and reliability, which became something that American manufacturers wanted to emu- late. Lean manufacturing became a guiding phi- losophy in the mid-1980s for manufacturing and management superiority, and was soon applied widely to all manufacturing environments. e simplest explanation of Lean manufacturing (and Six Sigma) is the relentless pursuit of perfection, or manufacturing with zero defects. In bare board fabrication, defects aren't just a nuisance—they're a direct threat to profitabil- " Perfection is not aainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. " —Vince Lombardi