76 The PCB Magazine • September 2016
of these systems are shown in Figure 4 and
Figure 5.
Summary
The example of Whelen Engineering shows
how Lean principles can go hand-in-hand with
green principles. The results are lower costs
(one-third to one-half the cost from China),
decreased lead times (from four weeks to two
days) and improved quality (no final inspection
needed).
Numerous webinars and courses are avail-
able on Lean
[8]
, as it is one of the skills that goes
with TQC, and DOE. Further information about
Whelen can be obtained by contacting Alex
Stepinski through I-Connect007.
PCB
References
1. Survival Is Not Mandatory: 10 Things Ev-
ery CEO Should Know about Lean, by Steven
Williams.
2. Practical Applications of Lean Six-Sigma
to Drive Cycle Time Reduction, by Kathi Nargi-
Toth, The PCB Magazine, October 2015.
3. Mindtools, Lean manufacturing tutorial
4. Wikipedia definition of Lean manufactur-
ing
5. Happy's Essential Skills: Design for Manu-
LEAN MANUFACTURING
Table 6: Methods of chemical recovery to regenerate chemicals, minimize waste treatment and the ROI
for such systems.
Figure 4: Key recovery systems of ion exchange, evaporation, crystallization, reverse osmosis, and
electrolytic copper and tin electrowinning.
