IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1546580
10 I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2026 designers face around the world, but they're also working within their own markets, cultures, orga- nizations, and priorities. The articles in this issue on the PCB design communities, technical events, award ceremonies, and standards development in Europe provide real-time updates on how designers are approaching and overcoming these challenges. Their experiences matter, particularly as our industry works toward standards and solutions intended to serve a global electronics community. Those ideas are also evident in my refreshing inter- view with Dominik Grau, the new vice president for Europe at the Global Electronics Association, whose impressive CV traces the evolution of standards in our fast-changing industry. There's another idea running through this issue about the growing role of AI and automation in our work. What is the role of employees and empow- erment? Our contributors aren't warning us about AI replacing people. Quite the opposite. They show how AI and automation are already being put to work on the shop floor, helping manufacturers analyze information, identify problems, improve processes, and do things faster and more consis- tently. Those are powerful capabilities. But the technology becomes even more valuable when it's paired with the experience of the people using it. Someone who has spent years designing boards or working on a factory floor brings context to what the data is saying. We offer perspectives from Michael Gleason at GreenSource Fabrication, Sean Patterson, and columnists Steve Williams and Don Ball, demonstrating the importance of knowing which questions to ask, when something doesn't look right, and when a solution that works perfectly in one situation may not work in another. In his column, Steve Williams reflects on some of the great thinkers in quality and continuous improvement, suggesting that these leaders would have embraced AI. "None of these six would treat AI as a replacement for the discipline they spent their careers building. Each would use it to do what they already believed in, faster and at greater scale," he writes. In other areas of interest, Anaya Vardya explores flexible circuits in nanosatellites, Michael Carano explains some of the challenges of producing reli- able microvias in HDI builds, Shane Whiteside argues for American-made PCBs in American data centers, and Brian Buyea explores what designers get wrong about designing for reliability. Laurent Nicolet of SCHMID discusses the convergence between PCB fabrication and semiconductor processing. Finally, enjoy my interview with Aiden Neary, CEO of Xscindo, a company changing the way we approach circularity in electronics. The lessons brought home from traveling can be applied to how we do our work each day. The more perspectives we bring to a problem, and the more willing we are to learn from them, the better our decisions become. The real opportunity comes from putting those different kinds of knowledge to work together. I-CONNECT007 Marcy LaRont is the managing editor of I-Connect007 Magazine and executive director of IPC Publishing Group. Marcy started her career in PCBs in 1993 and brings a wide array of busi- ness experience and perspective to I-Connect007. To contact Marcy, click here. M A RCY 'S M U S I N G S