Pete,
I hear you, and I'm on the other side of the fence...we try to do what's
asked. I don't claim that we have all the answers, but I'd like to think
there is enough talent here to try and tackle most assembly issues.
I'm not trying to advertise at all, in fact I don't post who I work for at
all, I use my personel AOL address when posting, just so that anything that I
post won't be linked to who I work for...I don't want to be construed as any
sort of sales guy (I get my hands dirty when I work...hehehe).
But, I am interested in making things better, for both the OEM's who
outsource, and those of us who take on this business. There needs to be
mutual understanding of what is expected, and what we really can provide.
In our case, DFM inputs are pretty much history (I almost get "silly" with
glee when we have a chance to input things before we have to build them), we
deal with 20-mil pitch components on boards without fiducials as an example
(I still have a hard time figuring out why a designer leaves that "small
detail" out)...a lot of the business we do, the designs are "locked in
stone". When we get them, the assemblies have qualified when they were
prototypes, and that's the way they stay...those of you that deal with DOD
assemblies know what I'm talking about...we build boards with jumper wires
that have been that way for years...go figure.
But I suppose (from what I've been told..) that is our "niche"...doing stuff
that nobody else wants to deal with (which provides me with my content of
nightmares at night).
Pete, I just wanna say, I understand your position, I also wanna say that
there are some of us out there that wanna do what we need to do to help make
your company successful. We have a mission just as you have, if there is some
chance that both of us (OEM and EMS) can work together towards mutual
benefit, then I think it makes sense...
Your opinion is very well taken...
-Steve Gregory-
<< Beware the label "Centre of Excellence". When we decided to outsource the
manufacture of board assemblies because the volume was too great for our
own sadly diminished PCA assembly area, we were 'urged' by the
powers-that-be to use a sister company. Someone had stuck a label on said
sister's front door saying 'Centre of Excellence', though of course that
don't necessarily make it so. We sent them a batch of four kits of boards
to see how they got along with them and we also sent them all our Work
Instructions for reference so they could see how we did them (successfully)
during the development phase. They managed to destroy every one of the
kits. "We never pre-bake boards" they said before delaminating two of them
in the reflow oven. Another they had to carry out rework on and managed to
remove a considerable number of component lands, and I can't remember what
exactly happened to the fourth, but it was physically damaged through a
fundementally stupid piece of carelessness - and all this was on boards
that we sent to test out their capability. We weren't impressed and had to
spend a fortune in time, money and resources to "educate" them, bring up
their capability and knock some of the arrogance out of them. Fortunately,
although our own facility was diminished in capacity, we still had enough
good people left who could recover the situation, but it was an expensive
exercise while it lasted. Whether the Powers-That-Be learned any lessons
from that or not, I didn't stay around to learn, but they're a pretty
thick-skinned lot, so I sadly doubt it.
Yes, Doug, Quality, as I mentioned in an earlier e-mail, is something that
is not under your direct control any more with outsourcing, and by the time
you get to see the product it's too late to do anything about it that
round. Delays and extra cost arise, and lots of aggro as to who's to blame.
The engineers we had left after the outsourcing decision came in to effect
had little to do except push pens and get very bored with managing the
suppliers instead of being able to get their hands dirty. Outsourcing can
have quite an effect on the morale of a Company whose culture has thus
suddenly changed.
Pete Duncan
ST Aerospace >>
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