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50 SMT Magazine • February 2017 cause neither speaks the same language, and they have common no point of view. Spectacu- lar and public cases of product recalls have been the result, even while electronic systems are be- coming more of a critical part of our everyday lives, and counterfeiters are having a significant effect on product quality and brand trust. Compliance to internal or external stan- dards helps assure manufacturers that work is only placed into manufacturing centers which demonstrate the appropriate compliance certif- icates or approvals. Today, compliance require- ments extend to all quality sensitive markets for electronic goods such as military, medical, au- tomotive, aerospace, telecommunications, and industrial controls. Even lower-priced consum- er goods, such as handsets, toys, and games, re- quire safety and environmental compliance. Manufacturers who are not able to demonstrate this compliance simply do not win business in these markets. These trends are driving manu- facturers to implement higher levels of trace- ability for a wider range of industry segments. The IPC-1782 Critical Components Trace- ability Task Group was created to address these issues. This committee has completed the first all-encompassing traceability standard for elec- tronics, which is designed to be applicable to every product, in every company. Traceability is seen by many as a burden to the manufacturing process, and no one wants to have to comply or conform to yet another process or standard in the office or factory. The IPC-1782 committee members who all contributed so much to the creation of the traceability standard agreed that traceability ought to be implemented based on the merit that it brings to the manufacturing operation, rather than through some compli- ance mandate. The nature of electronics assembly is hierar- chical. A finished product, represented by an as- sembly cell, is typically made up of raw mate- rials plus subassemblies. Each of the subassem- blies is, in turn, a finished product of another Table 1: IPC-1782 summary of traceability levels. THE NEW IPC STANDARD FOR TRACEABILITY