Pat, I assume that your 9% failure rate is after operators have passed their work on as good. Based on that, IMO you should ask the following questions: Would my customer identify these as failures (through observation or failure rates) also? In other words, are internal inspection standards more stringent than necessary to meet customer or reliability requirements? Are the operators able to identify the same defects as the inspection staff? Are they adequately trained in defect identification and can they demonstrate their expertise? What will be done to improve operator quality to bring defect levels into an acceptable range prior to inspection? What monitoring steps will verify quality levels - customer complaints, process audits, evaluation random of samples of finished products prior to shipment? What will be done if sample evaluation indicates that failure rates are excessive? These questions are meant to provoke an examination of the quality system with regard to acceptability standards, operator training, process monitoring, and remediation of non-conforming product. The operations you mention are often not easily automated and rely primarily on operator skill, attention, and motivation. Unless one is confident that these issues are well controlled, it is foolish to remove a 100% inspection requirement. In the long run, it is also more costly to perform 100% inspection than to fix the causes of the defects. Hope this is helpful. Don Vischulis -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Diamond, Pat Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 2:57 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Inspection levels Dear all, I would be interested in your thoughts/comments on 100% operator self-inspection with no overcheck, my company is thinking of introducing this and it frightens the life out of me. At present we run with overcheck covering operator self inspection and and our faults to joints soldered is running at about 9%. We do not manufacture PCB's, this is purely on solder cup and Solder eyelets with all of it's inherent wire stripping etc. Does anyone out there have any experience of this? Regards, Pat. **************************************************************************** *************** The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer. **************************************************************************** *************** Pat Diamond Senior manufacturing Engineer Weston Aerospace Tel: +44 (0)1252 868194 124 Victoria Road Fax: +44 (0)1252 370298 Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 7PW Web www.westonaero.com> England Email mailto:[log in to unmask] --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives 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 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives 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 -----------------------------------------------------