Hi Barry: - No, I'm not implying that folks who use the A-610 are ignorant at all, just noting that the documents are philosophically different. People vote with their pocketbooks as well as their feet, and the A-610 is the most popular document ever published by the IPC, and it is not purchased or used by ignorant people. Think of J/STD-001 as a set of end wrenches, each paragraph (wrench) specifically sized to do a particular job, and A-610 as a crescent adjustable wrench, capable of doing the same job as the end wrench, but in a different manner. It is sort of an apples and oranges comparison, both documents are good, the technical handshake between the documents is excellent (no technical differences), but each approaching the same end product quality in a different manner. - In my experience A-610 is used by a lot of Class 1 manufacturers because it is so easy to implement and so unequivocal. I know, I know, Class 1 folks are sometimes looked down upon by those who dwell in the rarefied atmosphere of Class 3 products. Believe me, the folks who build Class 1 products (cellphones, pagers, TV's, VCR's, etc. at a rate of 1,000,000/month) have forgotten more about process control than most folks will ever know. - By the way, we teach the IPC Standards (A-610, J/STD-001, and the new 7711/7721 Rework/Repair Program [which we created for the IPC]) at both the Instructor and Operator level and have found failure rates to be approximately equal across the Instructor classes (Operator classes have a slightly higher failure rate offshore and on the left coast due to ESL operators). - Hope this clarifies the intent of my earlier message, no offense intended to users of A-610. - Regards, Jim Moffitt, Technical Director, Electronics Training Advantage, Indianapolis, IN --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TechNet Mail List provided as a free 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 TECHNET Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------