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88 I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2026 for solar cell manufacture that necessitated the cleaning of manufacturing residues off the back of the cell without anything touching the front side of the cell. The process was new to us as well, so we had no pre-existing wisdom to offer. Being start-ups, they had no access to equipment or chemistry needed to run tests. We offered to rent them both lab time and staff (me) to run tests under their supervision. Our problem was that each company was only marginally aware of the other and only suspected that the other was working on the same process. The goal of both companies was to develop a process and sell it or the entire company to the highest bidder. NDAs were signed that allowed us to use any specialty equipment developed for this process for anything not related to this specific solar cell process, but the process developed dur- ing these tests belonged to the customer. Company A came in first and, after a few visits and testing between them, we were able to de- velop a viable, patentable process. (It also didn't require any extensive equipment redesign on our part). Company B came in a few months later, and we provided them with the same initial set-up as we had for Company A. It soon became very frustrating as we could see they were clearly going down the wrong path, and we couldn't even give them hints that might point them in the right direc- tion. Fortunately, a moral dilemma was avoided when company B decided the whole thing was a bad idea and disappeared from the scene, never to be heard from again. So, even if forming customer/supplier teams to investigate new processes can be complicated, it is still a worthwhile endeavor and one way to cope with ever-changing process demands without any hard standards. Suppliers have probably seen more good, bad, and ugly ideas than any manufac- turer can possibly imagine. Keeping good relations with your various suppliers can help you as stan- dards change and also help the suppliers keep up with rapid changes in manufacturing PCBs. I-CONNECT007 Don Ball is a process engineer at Chemcut. To read past columns or contact Ball, click here. T H E C H E M I CA L C O N N ECT I O N