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Maintaining Quality through IPC Training & Certification
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
By Michael Martel
The impact of IPC "Training and Certification Programs" on the electronics manufacturing industry cannot be overestimated. Hundreds of thousands of people involved in the production of circuit boards and assemblies have benefited from these programs. Major OEMs and EMS companies have become leaders in the program, with impressive results.
"Celestica first adopted IPC Training and Certification Programs in 1998," says Zenaida Valianu, master IPC trainer (MIT) IPC global training coordinator and operations training analyst at the Celestica Learning Center. "Today, as a certified training center for IPC-A-610, IPC-7711/7721, and J-STD-001, we have 14 MITs, more than 100 certified IPC trainers (CITs), and thousands of certified IPC application specialists (CIS) in our 40 manufacturing and design facilities globally."
"Education and training are critical elements for the success of our organization, particularly in such fundamental skills as electronics assembly, hand soldering, and inspection," Valianu adds. "Participation in IPC programs has been crucial to provide standardized, industry-accepted skills quickly and efficiently. It's a key means of providing the right skills to our employees, and our customers expect our operators to be certified to IPC standards, and our product assembled to the quality levels defined in IPC standards. It is simply not an option to not be engaged with IPC. Our success with defect prevention and elimination, process control and methodology, and technology leadership are closely aligned with the success of our IPC program implementation." Similarly, IPC programs have been an integral part of Solectron's "Quality" processes, and have contributed to high customer satisfaction, says Sue Spath, lead-free training coordinator for the Americas. Sue is an MIT at Solectron USA, in Charlotte, N.C.In addition to using IPC standards as guidelines, many of Solectron's associates serve on IPC technical boards and standards committees. "Using a clear-cut industry standard has been crucial in keeping our quality above reproach, and ensuring that our associates are trained to the highest degree," Spath adds. "Using IPC standards also guarantees that everyone is getting the latest information on new processes and/or new components. Being a global company, we are assured of quality training throughout our global sites using IPC for our standards." Electronics assembly has always involved a large component of manual work, such as hand soldering and rework-and-repair techniques. Presently, much of an assembly's quality and reliability depends on the ability and consistency of skilled operators. During the early 1990s, much emphasis was given to the establishment of "turnkey" lines and "lights-out" facilities. It was postulated that removing the art from screen and stencil printing, for example, would ensure higher repeatability, yields, and predictable quality. Getting the human factor out of manufacturing, as much as possible, was the goal. Higher profitability would result as labor costs were eliminated.Lights-out, however, never became the norm, but rather the exception, usually in large OEM factories. The rise of the EMS industry, with small batches of product in high-mix manufacturing environments, rolled back the trend toward turnkey lines. High-volume assembly using massive amounts of low-wage labor assisted by some machinery pushed out volume production of everything from laptops to panels of cell-phone PCBs. There is still plenty of operator-dependent assembly, rework, and inspection going on in the electronics manufacturing industry. Small EMS and "mom-and-pop" assemblers are busy building smaller volumes of challenging assemblies.
Jennifer Day, CIT for Sanmina-SCI and co-chair for the IPC-A-610 committee, says, "Participation in the IPC training and certification programs allows my company to be involved and ensures that practical, beneficial, and standardized training is included in the industry-used programs. Through the use of these programs, they establish consistent training that allows employees the versatility to move from one product type to another. Using the industry-accepted programs also assures our customers of the knowledge and skills base of our employees. Quality-built product is accomplished when you empower employees with the knowledge and verification of your customer-specified requirements."
With so many operators and technicians in facilities around the globe, skill levels, as well as experience, vary greatly. IPC Association Connecting Electronics Industries realized that a healthy electronics manufacturing industry depended on standardized training for all involved. It was not desirable for every work cell to have established a unique way of doing things, performing procedures, or product acceptability guidelines. The industry demanded uniform training. Most importantly, as more challenging technologies appeared fine pitch, BGAs, micro-BGAs, and leadless devices such as PQFNs different types of defects and cosmetic anomalies appeared. What constituted a defect? What did not? Where was the dividing line?
In 1995, IPC responded to member requests for a formal industry-traceable training and certification program for electronics assembly acceptance. U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) certification programs, which focused on relatively small users groups, were cancelled. At that time, IPC-A-610, Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies, was gaining in popularity throughout the industry. Already published in 14 languages with plans to expand to additional languages, it has since become the most widely used electronics assembly standard in the world. Additionally, ISO quality programs required documented training programs. For both ISO and training purposes, manufacturers needed a course that would allow them to easily train their workers to understand the document's requirements. IPC worked with a consortium of academia and training companies that had experience in the cancelled DoD training programs to develop the first IPC training certification program. Credibility of the program was considered paramount; thus, it required industry involvement in its development. A committee of industry (user) representatives directed and formally approved the technical content. Another committee (also comprised of industry representatives) established administrative policies and procedures.
"Participating in an industry-developed course facilitates ISO certification and shows potential customers that the company is serious about quality," says Jack Crawford, IPC's director of certification. "The IPC-A-610 training and certification program was the first of what are now five industry-traceable programs that support industry-consensus standards, each of which follows a two-tier 'train-the-trainer' concept," adds Crawford. "First, companies send an instructor candidate to an authorized (licensed) IPC training center. Upon successful completion of the course, that individual becomes a CIT and is provided, as part of the tuition cost, the materials needed to train and certify application-level users, such as operators, inspectors, and members of engineering and management teams. These people thus gain CIS titles."
Three of IPC's certification programs reinforce discrimination skills see it, hear it, read it, write it, and apply it and support the visual acceptance criteria in IPC-A-600, Acceptability of Printed Boards; IPC-A-610, Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies; and IPC/WHMA-A-620, Requirements and Acceptance of Cable and Wire Harness Assemblies. In addition to discrimination skills, the other two programs provide another critical aspect. The programs for J-STD-001, Requirements for Soldered Electrical and Electronic Assemblies; and IPC-7711A/7721A, Rework, Repair, and Modification of Electronic Assemblies require hands-on training and acceptable demonstration of students' workmanship skills (Figure 1).
Rich Breault, president of Lightspeed Mfg., a growing EMS provider in Methuen, Mass., says that IPC training and certification is vital to his business. "When we approach a new customer, the fact that our people have been trained to IPC-A-610 is a big selling point. It gives the customer confidence in our ability to provide quality product to the industry's highest standards." Breault adds that a key advantage to IPC training is that it involves all of the technicians at once; they all learn together, at a uniform rate and speed. This enhances their ability to work together and cooperate, and support one another's skill levels. "As an EMS provider specializing in all types of assembly and BGA rework, our operators must be competent across the range of soldering and assembly skills. IPC training programs have given them that, and, as such, it has been a great benefit to our business." Today, each program has four components: certify and recertify trainers at IPC authorized training centers; and certify and recertify the application specialist by certified IPC trainers. The recertification interval is two years.
These programs include a critical element not available from online, video, or computer-based training, and that is full interaction with a knowledgeable, credible instructor to resolve comprehension issues immediately. While IPC documents do not require certification to use the standard, customers frequently require that vendors can document participation in an acceptable training program to ensure that their products have gone through rigorous quality control. Use of industry-traceable training, such as IPC programs, also facilitates ISO certification, which becomes important in international trading.
The assembly programs are the most widely used, but the program for bare board acceptance also has broad industry acceptance. As IPC marks its 50th anniversary, one can look back over the years to see the impressive and incalculable impact that its training has had on the industry. Before IPC became a global organization, its training programs kept the U.S. electronics manufacturing industry the competitive leader. Now, as an organization with global reach, IPC training contributes to the high quality and reliability of electronic assemblies everywhere, a particularly critical factor in such industries as automotive, aerospace/avionics, and medical electronics.
IPC-A-600, Acceptability of Printed Boards; and IPC-6012, Qualification and Performance Specification for Rigid Printed Boards have set the standard for bare board performance and workmanship quality, providing comprehensive acceptance criteria accompanied by illustrations and photographs showing all types of printed board surface and internal conditions. Because of its importance to both the PCB manufacturer and assembler, IPC-A-600 was one of the first documents published by IPC to gain worldwide acceptance. The IPC-A-600 Training and Certification Program is designed to help all segments of the electronics interconnect industry improve their understanding of printed board quality issues.
IPC-A-610 is the most widely used standard published by IPC. With multiple language versions, it has an international reputation as the source for end-product acceptance criteria for consumer and high reliability printed wiring assemblies. Table 1 illustrates the scope and size of IPC Certification programs as of April 2007. It should be noted that there also are 13 private training centers that support their own internal company training. Additionally, the number of CIS is based on certificates issued since November 1998. There is no history for 610 programs from 1995 through November 1998. The J-STD-001 program started in 1998.
Joan Sanford, an MIT at Benchmark Electronics Inc, in Rochester, Minn., and a manufacturing learning and development specialist, says, "We use several IPC standards here at Benchmark. The three major standards used in our solder training lab are IPC-A-610, IPC-J-STD-001D, and IPC7711A/7721A for training and certification of our staff. We consider the IPC standards tools of our trade in manufacturing our products to meet or exceed our Customers expectations."
ConclusionWhat does the future hold? If anything, the need for IPC training and certification programs will only increase. The move to lead-free soldering has created a host of problems that have narrowed the process window and increased the incidence of soldering defects. Acceptance criteria with evolving materials and processes are more difficult to interpret "frosty" lead-free solder joints and less-than-optimal wetting, for example. Operators and quality control managers must become educated about the technology, what constitutes a defect or simply a cosmetic anomaly, and be more discerning. Only training can achieve this. SMT
Michael Martel may be contacted via e-mail mmc@mmc-marketing.com.More information about these and other IPC programs, such as EMS Manager Certification and IPC Designer Certification, is available online at www.ipc.org/certification. E-mail questions about IPC professional training and certification programs to certification@ipc.org; or contact Jack Crawford, IOM, IPC director certification and assembly technology: jackcrawford@ipc.org; (847) 597-2893.