Inspection in a changing landscape

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Like all “test” techniques, inspection has become part of the production mainstream. Nevertheless, the logistics of the overall quality strategy have evolved.

Electronics manufacturing companies generally no longer dictate a single process from a central hub. They often allow individual operations to make many process decisions, so equipment and vendor choices lack consistency. Avoiding incompatibilities calls for a two-pronged approach.

First, a company’s upper management should retain some control over decisions made by their counterparts in the field. When one facility uses post-paste inspection while others do not, for example, it becomes difficult to track quality and failure data. Setting guidelines for local managers’ decisions will minimize this type of confusion. At the same time, production managers “in the trenches” must voice their concerns when the guidelines do not meet their needs.

Second, quality data must be collected in a common format, regardless of the process that generates it. Environments like Microsoft Excel and National Instruments’ LabView can address a wide variety of situations.

Like the technology, the manufacturing process forever remains a moving target. Fighting that inevitability is a useless exercise. It makes more sense to find creative ways to embrace the changes to improve overall process and product performance.

Contact Steve Scheiber at sscheiber@aol.com.