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10 The PCB Magazine • September 2017 Patricia Goldman is managing editor of The PCB Magazine. To contact Goldman, click here. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PROCESS ENGINEERING of course there are such T-shirts online! I got a chuckle out of these: • "Trust me, I'm a process engineer" • "Being a process engineer is easy, it's like riding a bike, except the bike is on fire, you're on fire, everything is on fire and you're in hell" • "Process Engineer: We solve problems you didn't know you had in ways you don't understand" • "I'm a process engineer, not a magician" Where were those when I needed one so many years ago! But back to the magazine. There is no one more anxious to pass along his 40+ years of ex- perience and knowledge of PCBs than Happy Holden, certainly one of the original process en- gineers in our industry. To that end, he distilled several conversations on the subject into an ar- ticle that is full of useful info, great ideas and valuable advice worth heeding—and not just for the engineers, but for their management, suppliers (including designers) and customers. Next, Steve Williams of The Right Approach Consulting delves into a specific task of pro- cess engineering, that of managing changes to a process—which can be endless. Follow his di- rection to prevent or at least control this pro- cess evolution, as I defined it above. Believe me, it does happen so pay attention to Steve as he explains how to manage a "temporary process change" program. RBP Technology's Mike Carano is Mr. Trou- bleshooter and, true to form, he gives us a fine article on one of the process engineer's top pri- orities, which of course is troubleshooting—find- ing solutions (pun intended) to process problems and product defects. He illustrates his points us- ing excerpts from the IPC-9121 troubleshooting guide (the subcommittee of which yours truly once chaired, a position now held by Mike). Marc Ladle, Viking Test Ltd, provides a wonder- ful story that illustrates both the process change and troubleshooting columns just mentioned. Nothing like a real-life example to hammer these concepts home. You're paying attention, right? Omni PCB's Tara Dunn uses a famous quote from a popular movie to illustrate the behind- the-scenes actions and decisions that make a fully assembled PCB magically come into being from a mere design file. She describes three ex- amples of "magic" that, if these indeed seem to be like magic to you, perhaps a facility tour or two should be in your near future. Straying somewhat from our process engi- neering theme, IPC's John Mitchell discusses automotive electronics and the importance of proper manufacturing standards. We all know autonomous vehicles are coming, but did you know that today's new cars already can have up to 80 electronic controllers on-board? Find out more inside (the magazine, that is). Departing totally from the main topic, but in keeping with our standard modus operan- di, we have a great technical article on printed electronics, and not just printed electronics— 3D printed circuit structures. Maybe they're not ready to overtake our PCBs, but they do bring definite advantages for certain applications. Finally, let's swing around to another sub- ject and that is workplace safety. Yeah, we all have a safety program, but how do you get your employees to embrace it? Leave that to Bar- ry Lee Cohen and Launch Communications to give you excellent recommendations to jazz up your safety program and get your employees— especially those younger ones—to not just buy in, but to carry it forward. So, that's another chock-full month for you. Get busy, read, absorb, apply. Do it and your company will be better off for it. Next month will be all about signal integri- ty and controlled impedance. What it takes to build these boards and what you need to know if you do. Get on board now by subscribing. And you managers out there, don't be surprised if your PEs come in sporting a new t-shirt—bet- ter yet, stock up on a few and motivate the heck out of them at the next monthly meeting. PCB