Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/553274
22 The PCB Design Magazine • August 2015 feature program, the boot camps that are set up by various end-users to educate their people, and physical classes at APEX where you can actually see people like Gary Ferrari or Rick Hartley and listen to them and understand what it is that they're talking about. Things like PCB West and DesignCon, where you have specific forums where people and classes at those shows deal with this kind of stuff. I would also add things like my blog "The Bare Board Truth" on LinkedIn, our very own LinkedIn forum that is used for networking, and also your local IPC Designers Coun- cil. We highly encourage anybody to get an IPC Designers Council started in their area because, at some point, it takes on a life of its own, and problem solving is within the group. It's very, very helpful and certainly mitigates failure. Shaughnessy: i guess the war on failure, from our standpoint, is never really over, is it? i mean, you're not going to win the war, but you can manage it. Thompson: The fact that we've got some new people in the industry and there are training issues at that level is certainly part of this. Let's not forget that right now, in our indus- try, we're looking at a lot of young fresh, re- cruits. Young EEs from the universities. Some of them are starting with large design bu- reaus and being mentored by old dogs who have methodologies from old times. I can't tell you how many times a new recruit will call and say, "I've got an 8-layer board. I want impedances on layers 1, 3, 6 and 8. They're 50 & 100 ohms. Send me your calculations and send me a stack up." Now, we are glad to send the stackup based on the orders given, and we do. But we try not to get frustrated when it is apparent that the new recruit was just following orders when the job lands in CAM with the old dog's trick of flooding copper planes to within .005" of the traces, inducing coplanar coupling and messing up all of our given stackup calcula - tions. So we manage the war first by showing respect to our veterans. If they will listen, we take every opportunity to give them the information they need to be able to continue with their board. Dack: It's a great topic. The war on failure has so many metaphors relating to design and manufacturing. What we are about are our defense strategies. Like we said before, fail- ure wins only if the allied strategies of com- munication and education obliterate the axis tactics of division and isolation in the design and manufacturing cultures. Shaughnessy: at least if the designers commu- nicate with fabricators and with the assembly guys, and if everybody communicates, you may not eliminate all the failures, but you'll certainly be able to manage it better. Dack: The war on failure is inevitable because failure will not relent. Failure is a force. Thompson: Losing the war on failure is not healthy for designers, manufacturers and other living things. Shaughnessy: all right. thanks so much for join - ing me today guys. PCBDESIGN