Eva,
that is big mis-understanding of the certification:  it is not intend  
to teach employee (training) how to solder.  the responsibility  
should be EMS in  house training due to  (1) equipment difference (2)  
back ground difference (3) type of the job they do (job shadowing is  
key).  IPC course is not intended as short cut to those.  When I 1st  
join a company (IBM), although I was electronic material in major, I  
still go through job shadow rotations, that took almost 1 month,  
including SMT line, repair, pick/place, inspection, wire bonding, die  
attach, etc.etc. of course, QA inspection (at time, there  is no IPC  
certification requirements - early 90s)... EMS work force can be vary  
great deal  - from excellent due to good experience with many  
companies and different kind of design/assembly, to "not  so good" -  
very limited knowledge on basic phase diagram of solder melting for  
example.. it couple with poor QA and  FA (not due to capability of  
operating good machine, especially, new machine that automated many  
functions, but lack of knowledge of understand data... such as SEM  
30kV EDX showed no  difference of gold pad contamination, even the  
secondary electron image showed a black spot on the pad - it took a  
long time to explain the accelerated voltage vs electron penetration  
depth and signal strength... although I was told those chaps fully  
trained by SEM equipment vendor...).  it your customer wants basic  
solder training but lack  of in house capability, they either in the  
wrong business, or they need to invest some serious money to haul  
external expert (not SMT equipment vendor, or solder iron vendor) to  
bring up to speed.  IMHO.  IPC certification training is not  the  
right course.
my 1.5 cents.
jk
On Nov 9, 2018, at 3:22 PM, Eva J wrote:

> however, some customers are
> unsatisfied with the lack of hands on training relative to  
> presentation
> time. Yes, customers like the J-STD-001 certification, but really  
> they want
> their employees to know how to solder. Understanding the  
> requirements is a
> different level.