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The Inside Line
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
SMTA 2006 Pan Pacific Call for Papers
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - The SMTA has opened its call for papers for the 2006 Pan Pacific Microelectronics Symposium, to be held at the Marriott Waikola Hotel on the Big Island of Hawaii, January 17 to 19. The Program Committee is recruiting participants to present research results on any of the following topics:
Business: cross-cultural management, economics and cost analysis, green manufacturing, manufacturing management, outsourcing strategies and roadmaps.
Packaging: 3-D and stacked packages, BGAs, chip scale, display drivers, embedded devices, flip chip, integrated passive devices, MCM/SiP, RF and microwave, thermal management and wafer-level assembly.
Interconnection: advanced PWBs, co-fired ceramics, flat panel displays, flex/flex rigid, high-density interconnects, microvias, shaped circuits and thin- and thick-film materials.
Markets: characterizations, penetration strategies, segmentation, technology drivers, trends and forecasts.
Assembly: automation control, component control, direct-chip attach, materials and processes, repair and rework, test and troubleshooting.
Microsystems and Nanotechnology: actuators, DFX, MEMS/MOEMS, nano materials, nano systems, optoelectronics portioning strategies and sensors.
Abstracts should be 500 words and submitted by July 15, 2005, with title and author contact information. Abstracts should describe experiment results and techniques focusing on technical or economic data. Visit the Call for Papers page of the Pan Pacific Website at www.smta.org/pan_pac for online submission. Abstracts also can be submitted to JoAnn Stromberg via e-mail: joann@smta.org.
Six Sigma: Food for Thought
With talk ensuing about the importance of six sigma and quality assurance, it’s easy to understand how these methods of operation relate to the SMT industry; especially with the growing concern for tracking of leaded and lead-free parts on the shop floor. But would you believe that one of the most well-known six sigma-certified groups in Mumbai, India, has nothing to do with electronics manufacturing? The dabbawala of Mumbai are a group of food deliverymen, but these are no ordinary men in red suits delivering pizzas. The dabbawala are six sigma rated for efficiency. For a small fee, the dabbawala service will pick up a homemade lunch from a worker’s home and deliver it to his or her office. Sounds simple enough, right? It’s not quite that simple.
Mumbai is a densely populated city, and people travel long distances to work. Because of crowded trains and strict religious beliefs, and to avoid large lunchtime crowds, people often rely on the dabbawala to deliver their lunch boxes to them. (The word “dabbawala” translates to “one who carries a box”.) Each meal is cooked in the morning at a worker’s home and picked up by a dabbawala. Several dabbawalas ride on bicycles from home-to-home collecting the box lunches, which are marked with distinguishing colors or symbols. The boxes then are taken to a sorting area, where other collecting dabbawalas sort, bundle and put them onto trains. At each station, boxes are given to local dabbawalas for delivery.
More than 100,000 to 170,000 lunches are transported daily by about 4,000 dabbawalas. A recent survey shows that one mistake is made in every 6,000 deliveries. Forbes magazine gave the lunch-delivery system a six sigma rating, indicating 99.999999 accuracy percentage of correctness - or one error for every six million transactions.
Perhaps the electronics industry can learn something from the dabbawalas’ efficiency and exactness. Quality assurance and pride in one’s work should transcend all workplaces, whether it is on the production line, the factory floor or even the lunch program.
- Michelle M. Boisvert