Well, in past lives, I had the original known good copies of these recipes under EC control and when a run was needed, a copy was used. Run changes and tweaks were allowed but documented in the work order by the operator and signed off by the SMT Engineer (we only allowed SMT Engineers to change programs). Depending on the tweak or change, an EC might be generated depending on if the tweak was deemed an as is condition or a necessary fix that subsequent builds would also require. Most program changes were done during development and process stabilization when the program technically was not locked down but changes did still need to occur depending on the parts, EC, MFG subtleness on components, etc. The reason I did this is that I saw instances where an operator felt it would run better one way or tweaked placements/reflow that were not necessary and then saved the changes. This caused issues on the next build and there was no accountability if you had a question. We tried to control all recipes, software, etc that were needed to build a product but tried to be reasonable and let the business be able to run without choking it with paperwork. We did this mainly to meet the "High Degree of Assurance" mandated in the FDA 820 but it was a good practice without the FDA requirement. My personal opinion is tweaks to programs were typically more determined by the competency of the design and those tweaks we did to get by should have really been considered for Gerber changes to stop the need to tweak at all. Kat -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Douglas McCall Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 7:51 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] AS9100 and SMT/reflow machine program changes Hi,I have been asked to consider the up-issue of SMT, reflow and stencil print programs using an engineering change process with respect to controlling changes made and for products being manufactured to AS9100 specifications. Has anyone had any experience of this practice? What is the general opinion of trying to control SMT program issue status (not assembly issue but SMT/reflow program issue) using an engineering change. Is this common practice. When changes are made to the SMT, reflow or stencil print, program there would need to be an EC to approve the change. I am a bit unsure if this is workable!! Thanks for the input in advance.Douglas I McCall. _________________________________________________________________ Win 100's of Virgin Experience days with BigSnapSearch.com http://www.bigsnapsearch.com --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 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/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 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/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------