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
Douglas Pauls
<[log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask]
KWELL.COM> cc:
Sent by: TechNet Subject: Re: [TN] Loaded question...outsourcing vs.
<[log in to unmask]> in-house manufacturing ...
04/24/01 09:54 PM
Please respond to
"TechNet E-Mail
Forum."; Please
respond to dopauls
Good morning all,
Another thing to consider in the outsourcing is who will be watching the
quality of the products made for you? Many companies outsourced
manufacturing and got rid of their experienced solder operators,
inspectors, and other quality people. When it came time to monitor the
quality of the product coming back in from the subcontracted source,
surprise, all the people qualified to make the decision were gone. Design
engineers who never visited the manufacturing floor when it was in house,
are a poor substitute.
Doug Pauls
Rockwell Collins
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