Hello Technetters,

First, this response is from someone who works in a board shop
so take it with a .......

I believe there are already multiple avenues for a customer to find
the proper board shop.  Starting with the ISO approved shops and
going to the IPC members list.  The problem I have with another
group auditing the PCB shop is that each is gear to build completely
different products.  Tyco (my shop), for example has seven different
shops (as of this letter) and when customers try to use one audit for
all of them they become very frustrated.  The volume shop is geared
to low cost manufacturing, the tech shop is gear to new products,
etc....
My point finally is who as a third party would be qualified to audit
us?   If you want to know the "true capabilities" of a shop you can
use the CAT test to evaluate their technology.  I just see another
level of cost being introduced that cannot possibly take all the
needs of the customer and publish the "rating" of a PCB shop.

Just my opinion,

Joe Dickson
Dir. of Engineering
Tyco Intl. PCB
Santa Clara /Stockton
Divisions

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