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.