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20 SMT Magazine • August 2017 leading to overall improvement in processes. The education process also can come out of getting people from different sides of the spectrum to sit down and really talk about the manufacturing challenges. "For example, we recent- ly had a customer that we have had for years and their designs are very, very challenging," nar- rates Ramirez. "One day, we took a group of our manufacturing engi- neers and we went and had lunch with their engineers. Slowly, the ideas started flowing engineer to engineer. It was not rocket science. It was just getting the people that are designing talking to the people that are manufacturing it, and it was fantastic. We were able to solve chronic problems by having these guys talking. From my perspec - tive, I think that OEMs need to treat their contract manufacturers (CMs) as partners. They're part of your organization, not just another vendor that is making you parts, but they've got to be a partner - ship, sharing ideas and having improvement ac- tivities and kaizen events together. Not just once in a quarter, let's see what your price is and let's see your quality, etc. The more involved the OEM is with their partner CM the better the results are going to be for both organizations." Ramirez adds that in their results, the cus- tomers that are involved have better yields, and they have better reliability. "For the ones that are not involved, there is a little bit of strug- gle. We do our best but you can see a difference between the customers that are completely in- volved versus the ones that are not involved with the manufacturer." "I was just going to add on to what we were saying about education. I think what Luis was just saying is really important because it's not just about education in a single discipline like SMT technology, for example. You can't just op- erate in a vacuum. A manufacturer who is using an EMS should know about the day-to-day chal- lenges that an EMS has to deal with from a prac- tical standpoint. Beyond the technology itself. Communication, education, it all goes hand in hand," says Ellis. When it comes to education in the assembly process, software, the continuous improvement, the level of education can be mainly comprehensive in a lot of fronts to continue to improve the process. "I think a key thing that is very important is finding a sup- plier that can provide remote ac- cess and diagnostics for their equipment. Even if you only have a component with a 3% rejection rate, why is it being rejected that 3%? Sometimes it could be some - thing as simple as your toleranc- es not being set exactly right on the pick and place machine. The amount that those compo- nents are supposedly out of tolerance may be totally insignificant from a process standpoint, yet it's reducing your efficiency. These are the kind of things that our technicians can easily pinpoint and rectify through a quick diagnos - tic assessment of the machine's performance. All we need is a quick phone call and an inter- net connection," says Ellis. "For us, it's the same message. Reach out. Sometimes, I have to remind engineers that they're not God and they don't necessarily know everything. I know sometimes for the technical people, it's a little bit harder for them to admit they don't know everything. We try to encour- age everyone to pick up the phone and call the manufacturer. I think that giving our suppliers a call and saying, 'Can you help us? I'm strug- gling. I don't understand.' It is very valuable," says Ramirez. Understand Your Improvement Goals You have to have a clear goal when you set out to improve a process. It may be a quality challenge, a cycle time challenge, or a set up challenge. It may be multiple things, according to Ramirez. "If you look at the fishbone, it could be multiple spines causing one problem. At the end of the day, what we want to do is have the product built, flow, and able to meet or exceed any quality requirements. That's what we want to accomplish," he explains. "It's interesting be- cause we were talking earlier about the machine Dan Prina TRAINING AND EDUCATION: KEY TO IMPROVING ELECTRONICS ASSEMBLY