Joe (and all),
I don't know about dour, just un-enthused. You make some good points, Joe.
And I think the conference was good. Nothing ground-breaking - grinding
through RoHS reliability issues, etc. However, with regard to the exhibition,
there really wasn't anything new and exciting there. Same old -same old.
Yeah, a few of the pick and place manufacturers bragged about higher placement
speeds and there were a few more AOI, X-RF guns and vapor phase machines there
as compared to last year. Cogiscan formally unveiled their RFID "smart
feeder" approach. But not much else.
Having spent a good portion of my early career with equipment manufactures
(including Universal Inst, Excellon-Micronetics and Vitronics), traditionally
there were two major shows where the new equipment was unveiled for the
industry - Productronica (every two years) and NEPCON which trafsfigured into
APEX. These are our industry's equivalent to the Consumer Electronics show, the
SEMA show, and auto shows like Tokyo, Paris, NY, etc. This year's APEX show
lacked that "pizzazz" and "buzz". Even a lot of the exhibits were smaller
(except Panasonic and Siemens). It just wasn't the same.
Of course it may be symptomatic of "too many shows". What, with SMTAI in
Orlando, ATE and the new IPC shows duking it out in Chicago in the Fall, too -
it may be approaching show burn-out. Or maybe their emphasis will be on the
Shanghai show - a sad commentary, indeed. Whatever....
On the other hand, I think you missed the best part
Steve and all -
The Mythbusters were superb! They are exactly what we see on the tube-
personable, casual and fun. And they loved being in a room full of engineers.
IPC president Denny McGuirk did a great job as "host" with some good
questions. They presented a couple of myths on the screen that were prefaced as ones
that will likely never be aired on Discovery Channel : "Do Girls Pass Gas?"
and "Can You Really Light Up A Fart?". One of the questions from the
audience asked them how their fame changed their lives. Their response was that it
gave them access to bigger "stuff" like an invitation to play with the worlds
largest laser at Lawrence-Livermore labs (it was described as being about "3
football fields long". But they are guys doing work that they love.
Another audience member thanked them for bringing applied science to the masses,
and especially for our kids. Yeah, that's what it's all about.
Oh, another personal highlight of the show for me was chat-time with Dave
Hillman, Doug Pauls and Bev Christian - always a pleasure.
Phil Zarrow
ITM Consulting
Durham, NH USA
_www.ITMconsulting.org_ (http://www.ITMconsulting.org)
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