Hi Technet,
There is a tutorial at the IPC/SMTA conference on Contract Manufacturing
Partnerships that I'm planning on attending, but as a jump start on that, I'd
like to throw out a question for discussion - "How do OEM's and CM's best
partner to develop new processes?"

Since we've outsourced our PCA's, I'm a process engineer without a line, but I
still need to make sure processes are in place for such things as high I/O
CBGA's, socketing large laminate packages, and other things that are usually
outside the sweet spot of most CM's.   Currently, we try to share roadmaps with
the CM's and pick the ones where we most align so that it makes the most
business sense for the CM and therefore makes the most sense for us.

The problem that I've been running across is that rarely have I gotten that
"partnership" feel.  Ideally, at least for the process development portion of
the project, I'd like to keep things very technical between engineers. I've
found that once accounting folks (on both sides) get involved at this stage,
the paranoia mounts resulting in engineers communicating in legalese.  I have
literally seen 2 month quoting cycles when the problem could be solved by a
couple of engineers spending a day on the line.

I think that both OEM's and CM's need to think differently about process
development and I'm curious if anyone out there has any success/horror stories
about partnering.

Thanks,
Rod
__________________________________________________
Rod Martens
Process Technology Engineer
Hewlett-Packard Company
3400 E. Harmony Rd. MSA5-6L
Fort Collins, CO 80528-9599
(970)898-7709  [log in to unmask]