All right, I am in a big internal fight in my company.  I thought we had
achieved consensus on changing PN's and had even come up with a format to do
it.  As soon as we started to try to implement it, however, two big issues
came up.
1.  The format we chose didn't work with the pick and place equipment ( we
have a small internal line for some of our SMT needs.  The rest is sent out)
2.  When asking for input on alternative preferred formats, R&D department
rose up and started to fight for no change at all.

The issues are:
a) Apparently the CAD layout database of parts has been stored by PN.  Which
means that they will need to copy and rename pretty much the whole database.
(I won't say what I think of that 'brilliant' idea, or whoever thought of
it...whatever happened to naming the database parts by their package
type???)
b) Our MRP parts database will have to increase by 50-75% in size, making it
more unwieldy.
c) The MRP database entry could take up to 15 weeks of straight keyboarding,
by those that currently maintain it - and that is just straight typing, no
doing any of the other jobs they normally are responsible for...
d)  The new PN standard will be stuck to the part forever, even once Pb free
is the norm.  We will still have to keep sticking our "F" on the end of
every new part we make forever and ever,...

One of the suggestions is that we keep the existing PN's for Pb free, and
make new PN's for items that will stay "leaded".  My argument is that it is
totally backward from industry standard, and then we will have to constantly
keep educating our suppliers in "our way" of doing things.  The response was
that they didn't think there was an industry standard FOR changing PN's,
because they could rattle off several co.'s that are not.  Since caps and
resistors make up a huge part of our database, and we can find examples for
almost all of them that did not change PN's...

Anyone have any additional resources, papers, arguments to help fight for
changing PN's?
I have been looking at the NEDA paper, and the iNEMI position.
Or should I just give up and allow whoever screams the loudest in the co. to
win...?

Genny

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Leadfee Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Leadfree
To temporarily stop/(start) delivery of Leadree for vacation breaks send: SET Leadfree NOMAIL/(MAIL)
Search previous postings at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------