Tag Archives: Dr. Ron Lasky

IPC Tin Whisker Conference Sheds New Light

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Folks,

I just returned from SMTA/INEMI’s Medical Conference in Milpitas (near San Jose/San Fransisco), where I spoke on tin whiskers. I then quickly traveled to Costa Mesa (400 miles south, near Los Angeles), to IPC’s Tin Whiskers/Reliability Conference, where I spoke on Weibull Analysis. Both shows where attended by 80-plus people.

Most noteworthy, at the IPC Tin Whiskers Meeting, was Raytheon’s Dave Pinsky’s presentation, titled: “Tin Whiskers at a Large Defense OEM: Past. Present, Future.” In addition to discussing claims that some vendors have of producing whiskerless tin coatings and other topics, most helpful was his mention of a report by the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association (GEIA) on Tin Whisker Risk Mitigation. This standard, GEiA-STD-0005-2 discusses mitigation details thoroughly. Not only has the knowledge of tin whiskers increased, there appears to be more confidence in coatings for mitigation. However, in mission-critical applications, a well thought out, multiple mitigation approach to tin whiskers is still needed. The image below, taken by NASA, shows a tin whisker next to a human hair. Tin whiskers are very thin indeed!

Cheers,

 

Dr. Ron

‘The Foibles and Strengths of People’

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Folks,

A reader commented that he liked the Patty and The Professor stories for their technical content, but he felt there was “too much story.” So, I feel an explanation for why I think the “story” part is important.

Manufacturing is accomplished by integrating people, processes, equipment, materials, components and so forth.  Most of our discussion on improving electronic assembly in blogs and other media, focuses on materials, equipment, processes, BGAs, QFPs, lead finishes, PWBs, etc. Look back at the first sentence and compare it to the second sentence. The thing we seldom discuss in examining ways to improve quality and productivity in our electronic assembly processes are the foibles and strengths of people.

Let’s explore the people aspect of electronics assembly by way of two examples, ACME and AJAX. ACME has the best equipment, the processes have been optimized by designed experiments to produce outstanding quality, and they use the best materials. AJAX has similar things going for it. However, at the end of the year, AJAX has noticeably greater productivity and profit.

What is the difference? People.

At AJAX, the workers have an understanding of the importance of productivity and a passion for their role in it. As a result, a stencil is seldom misplaced and a component placement machine is almost never without components in the feeders. In the long run, this type of attention adds up to 10% or so greater productivity and perhaps 20% greater profit.

This is why when Patty, Pete, The Professor and now Rob, are on an adventure, they clearly focus on the technical issues, but never fail to catch the people issues, too.

And so it is with all of us, people are our greatest resource.

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

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Battling ‘The Big O’

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Patty and Pete were able to squeeze in nine holes of golf, although it was stressful for Patty. Pete was a good golfer, but not in Patty’s league; he typically shot in the low 80s for 18 holes compared to Patty’s 68-72 range.

Today, going into the 9th hole, Patty was even par and Pete was one under. He was teasing her relentlessly.

The ninth hole was 532 yards long. Patty used all of her recent training and focused as she drove the ball. Her swing speed hit 114 mph and with a 4 mile an hour tailwind, her drive was 291 yards, 30 yards beyond Pete. Her second shot, with a five wood was 12 feet from the pin. Her putt was dead center for an eagle, Pete’s 8-foot birdie putt lipped out of the hole. Whew! She beat Pete by one stroke! Pete was still thrilled that he gave Patty such a close call.

As they left the golf course, Pete said, “John is really working miracles at the factory, given the constraints he is working under. He has developed a disciplined approach to changeovers and uptime, and has eliminated most waste. But the factory really needs to be cleaner and more organized. With all that is on his plate, and no cleaning staff, he will have trouble implementing a 5S. It will be hard to win new customers with the place looking like it does.”

The next morning, as they prepared for the meeting with Oscar Patterson, Patty noticed that John’s color was ashen.

“John, are you alright?” Patty asked.

“You’ve never been in a meeting with Mr. Patterson. He can be a bit … uh …. difficult,” John stammered.

“From what I hear he is a ruthless, brutal dictator,” Pete added.

John did not disagree.

Patty thought it might be best to call back to her site GM to clarify her mission.

The GM told her, “This guy is a blowhard. It would be great if you could review with him your findings and get his buy-in. But, don’t take any grief from him. He forgets that he sold us his company. Now he has a boss, and it is me. I told him you were going to perform an audit and I want him to work with you.”

So Patty, John, and Pete went to Oscar Patterson’s office to review their findings. Patty was immediately intimidated by him. He was a huge man, with a ponderous stomach. But the posters in his office were the worst. One read “I’m the Boss, you aren’t.” Another read, “My way or the highway.” Then she saw, “The Golden Rule of Management: Whoever has the gold makes the rules.” The last one she took time to read was especially troubling: “It’s a question of mind over matter: I don’t mind and you don’t matter.”

Patterson spoke first, “Let’s get this over with, I don’t have time to waste on this nonsense. I’m the boss and I’m responsible for profits, so give me your crap and get out of here.”

The Professor always advised Patty that after an audit it is best to present the strengths first and then the problems. However, never call the problems “problems”; call them “opportunities for improvement.”

“I learned this from my colleague Joe Belmonte,” The Professor told her. She had since met Joe at a few trade shows and was impressed by his wealth of experience and in-depth knowledge of assembly processes.

She started by discussing the very good 25% uptime, and the fact that the operators were quite good at changeovers. Pete had pointed out that the operators told him that John was responsible for both of these successes. The operators liked and respected John, but realized he had a tough job working for Patterson.

As imagined, Patterson warmed up to this compliments.

“I told ACME management that buying my company was a good deal. We cut costs and I am able to make a profit even though I have losers like John working for me,” Patterson bragged.

Patty was furious at this comment. Pete looked like he was going to jump across the table and take a swipe at the “Big O.” John just sat there looking defeated.

“This isn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” boomed Patterson. “Continue.”

Patty then reviewed the 7 mudas. She had been surprised that the company did quite well in this part of the audit also, undoubtedly attributable to John:

1. Overproduction
2. Unnecessary transportation
3. Inventory
4. Motion
5. Defects
6. Over-Processing
7. Waiting.

Hence, Patty’s comments were positive on this topic.

“You’se guys aren’t so bad,” boomed Patterson. “I told you I was good at generating profits, even stuck with a dufus like John here,” he finished.

At that comment, Pete’s faced turned the most crimson Patty had ever seen.

Patty then went on to “Opportunities for Improvement.” She thought she would start with 5S.

“We performed a 5S audit of your facility. This manufacturing philosophy consists of:

1. Sorting
2. Set in Order
3. Shining
4. Standardizing
5. Sustaining the Improvements,” she started.

“As ACME strives to get more customers for our contract manufacturing services, 5S is an important consideration, as many of our current and future customers practice Lean and especially 5S at their facilities,” Patty added.

As she went on, she reviewed the lack of order and cleanliness in the facility. She had photos of dried solder paste on the stencil printers, the flux and dust “stalactites,” and several other examples of 5S violations. Patterson’s face soon matched Pete’s in its level of sanguinity. But he said nothing.

Patty then volunteered that she and Pete would work with John and his team to implement a 5S if desired.

Patty could see Patterson was ready to blow, but she felt she must go on. The only topic left was turning off the nitrogen in the wave soldering machine. As Patty played the wave soldering video, surprisingly, Patterson seemed interested.
She continued, “We think an opportunity for improvement would be to reinstate use of nitrogen in the wave soldering process. First-pass yields have dropped from 94% to 87%, thus increasing rework. Or, perhaps, implementing a more robust wave solder flux. I contacted a wave flux vendor and I have some recommendations.”

At this Patterson became even redder in the face, in a rage he grabbed Patty’s laptop and threw it on the floor. Instinctively Pete dove for the laptop, spun around and inserted his chest between it and the floor. Patty had never seen such agility in a 45-year-old man.

“You bozos are worse than John the clown here!” he shouted, as he gestured toward John.

Patterson then kicked the trio out of his office. Pete was ready for a fight, but John and Patty, both visibly shaken, held him back.

Patty immediately called Sam, her GM, and told him in detail their findings and what happened at the meeting. She gave a good impression of what John had accomplished in spite of Oscar Patterson.

“Wow! Patty, I’m so sorry. I didn’t expect it would be this bad. I’ll change my schedule and fly there today. This situation will not stand. Why don’t you and Pete take a break and meet me for dinner at Dinardo’s at 7 PM? Bring John with you.”

Patty was glad that she backed up her files the night before, even though it looked like her laptop was fine.

Colonial Williamsburg was only a 45-minute drive away, and it was just 10 AM. Taking Sam’s advice to “take a break,” she and Pete drove away and toured this beautiful living museum. They also had lunch at the Trellis.

Surprisingly, with the Williamsburg respite and all of the walking Pete and Patty did, they were more relaxed and hungry than they thought they would be.

On the way back to Dinardo’s, Patty asked Pete, “How did you save my laptop? I’ve never seen such an agile, athletic move.”

“Twenty-nine years of beach volleyball,” Pete answered. “I was good enough that I tried out for the Olympics in ’92. Humbling experience,” he added.

About 10 minutes before they arrived at the restaurant, Patty’s mother called with updates on the wedding plans … only 10 weeks and counting!

John had arrived early at the restaurant and Patty and Pete met him. He looked nervous.

“John, how’s it going?” asked Pete.

“It’s hard to be optimistic,” John answered.

On that note Sam walked into the restaurant.

“This must be John Davis, the new GM, having replaced Oscar Patterson,” Sam stated with great cheer.

The words didn’t seem to register with John. “Congratulations John, well deserved,” Patty and Pete chimed in.

In the few days they were there, Patty and Pete had grown quite close to John. As the information sank in, tears welled up in John’s eyes.

“Do you think I’m up to the job?” he asked.

“John, you are already doing the job,” Patty answered.

Epilogue: Sam had felt it best to have the police accompany him to see Oscar Patterson with the news that he was fired. Patterson became so agitated that the police had to threaten to arrest him before he calmed down and was escorted from the facility.

With John at the helm, the “shop” was not recognizable in 3 weeks, as he implemented a 5S program that he designed with Patty and Pete. He performed some DoEs to find a wave solder flux that could perform well, without nitrogen, for most of his applications. However, he still used nitrogen for a few boards that had a large thermal mass. All of these, and the many other decisions he made were data driven.

Have you performed a Lean audit of your facility? Do you regularly practice 5S and look to eliminate the 7 mudas? Are your decisions “data driven” as John’s are?

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

Emerson’s Rule

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As Patty, The Professor and Pete maneuvered around the partially completed product, Patty noticed signs everywhere that proclaimed: “Being Responsive to Our Customer is Our Biggest Asset.”

Pete commented, “This place is so crowded with partially built product that not another tube of solder paste or even a solder preform could fit out here.”

The trio then approached a technician who was working on a product changeover. Patty introduced herself in Spanish and asked what he was doing.

Pedro’s face beamed when he heard Patty addressing him in his native tongue. He responded to her in Spanish.

“I’m doing a product changeover,” Pedro replied, “We are really good at them, because we do so many. This is actually the second changeover I’ve done on this line today,” he continued.

“Your first job, must have been a very small lot size,” Pete commented.

“Oh, no,” Pedro chuckled. “We never ran the first job.” He went on, “Another more important job than the fist came along and we were told by our supervisor to changeover for that one.”

“You mean you never ran any boards for the first job?” The Professor queried.

“That’s right,” said Pedro. “This only happens a couple of times a month.”

“I really like working here,” Pedro continued. “I feel proud that I have learned to be so good at changeovers and all of us have been able to work a lot of overtime since the ‘Being Responsive’ campaign started. We feel like we are really making a difference and getting great pay,” he beamed. “Just look at all of the product on the floor,” We are really producing a lot of stuff.”

Our team strolled away from Pedro and his coworkers and ran into a very hyper man, Phil Marcos, production manager. Phil was one of those types that made people nervous just being near him.

“Great job! Great job! These folks are really supporting my responsiveness campaign,” Phil projected at 250 words a minute in a strong Long Island accent. “I don’t have much time to chat, I have to stop production on line 4 for a ‘Being Responsive’ job that just came in. I need to have Pedro and the ‘changeover guys’ change that line over for this new job,” he finished as he trotted away. As he looked back, he added, “I’m so excited that next quarter we will have 15% more production and that sales are up 10% this year.”

As Phil left, The Professor commented, “It’s a good thing Phil doesn’t speak Spanish, I’m not sure my ancient brain could process 250 Spanish words a minute.”

They all burst out in laughter.

“I wonder where they will put all of the WIP when production increases 15%?” asked Pete.

The team spent the better part of two days reviewing production and inventory figures. They learned that the site had eight SMT/through-hole mixed assembly lines. Before Phil Marcos arrival, normally six of the lines were dedicated to jobs with very large lot sizes. Some of the jobs ran for months without a changeover. Since Phil’s arrival, high-mix, low-volume jobs have been sought by sales. The two lines devoted to such jobs in the past were insufficient to handle the influx in high-mix jobs. Customers demanded fast turn for these jobs as they paid a 5% premium. Since profit margins at this site were about 10%, these jobs seemed like a great deal financially. To meet this new demand most lines were regularly disrupted. There seemed to be little logic in how a line was selected, but all agreed that the facility looked “responsive.”

Pete found a room for Patty, The Professor and himself to review the data. Pete had been watching The Professor and it was clear that he was holding back to let Pete and Patty learn by searching for the answer without too much help from him.

“The loss in profit clearly relates to the changeovers,” Patty said. “Professor, why don’t you let Pete and I figure this one out and see if we get it right?” she added.

The Professor beamed at his two protégés.

After numerous calculations, Patty and Pete presented their conclusions to The Professor. After a few minor suggestions, The Professor agreed with their conclusions. They went off to review their findings with Harry Hopkins, Jane (the new corporate CFO), and hyper Phil Marcos.

Patty started the meeting with a preamble. “We developed a spreadsheet of costs, sales and profit. We are sure it is not the type of format finance uses, but it helps us to understand the problem.”

She projected the spreadsheet onto the screen and continued, “As you can see, sales are indeed up by 10% for this year, but that extra income was more than lost because inventory costs are up 66% and labor costs up 22%.” Patty went on, “The labor cost is understandable: you are doing many changeovers, often on second shift. Not only do you have to pay overtime premiums, but the many changeovers cause some disruption to all workers … your breakrooms have never been so crowded!

“Inventory carrying costs are a little harder to understand,” Patty continued. “Your increase in inventory is mostly product on the shop floor or WIP. Last year there was almost no WIP, now there is about $4 million in partially finished product on the floor at anytime. This decreases your inventory turns from 17 to about 10. We were able to make these inventory turn estimates, because holding each week of inventory costs about 1% of the yearly cost of all of the inventory. The bottom line is that the WIP is killing profitability, and the 5% cost adder for the responsiveness jobs doesn’t come close to making up for this loss.”

Hyper Phil moaned, and then rapidly said, “You’re saying that my being responsive to the customer campaign is a failure.”

“Not really, Phil,” intoned The Professor. “Just be more careful in your implementation.”

“Can you give an example?” moaned Phil.

“May I tackle this one?” asked Pete. “We did quite a thorough analysis and are convinced that you can implement 90% of your ‘responsiveness’ jobs and not negatively affect production. As an example, four ‘responsiveness’ jobs last week began at 1 PM and finished at 6 PM, too late for the day’s shipments. They didn’t ship until 10 AM the next day. They could have been assembled on the next shift, with no disruptive changeovers and no extra WIP hanging around.”

Patty added, “We believe that you should leave five of your eight lines undisturbed to handle jobs with very large lot sizes and have three lines for some large lot sizes and the ‘responsiveness’ jobs.

“We can work with you to develop a plan to minimize changeovers and WIP while continuing to be responsive. Your shop flow should be organized more like a ballet than a hockey game, quotinq Phil Crosby. You can be responsive and minimize disruption on the shop floor … a balance is needed,” she summed up.

“One thing to remember, is ‘Emerson’s Rule,’ ” The Professor interjected.

“What is that,” everyone asked.

“It is from my dear friend, Professor Bob Emerson of Binghamton University. He says, ‘Never release a job to the floor unless you are committed to finishing it uninterrupted.’ Bob is an expert on inventory management, he knows the crippling cost of inventory if not well managed, especially WIP, which includes much added value.”

The meeting broke up with Phil, Harry and Jane gratefully thanking the trio. Patty and Pete agreed to stay for a few days to help Phil set up a modified production control system.

“Boy, I was surprised how well that was accepted,“ Patty confessed.

Pete, who usually has insider info, responded, “Phil was told to work with us or else …. I guess he listened.”

On that note, Patty’s cellphone buzzed. It was her mother, with the latest wedding details.

All the best,

Dr. Ron

Thoughts on Lean

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Six Sigma has been with us for about 25 years and while embraced by many is not without controversy.  Lean, however, has few critics.

The essence of Lean is:

Lean manufacturing or lean production, often known simply as “Lean,” is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, “value” is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. Basically, lean is centered around creating more value with less work.”

I just returned from IPC’s first Lean Sigma Conference.  It was my privilege to be one of the folks who helped IPC’s Dave Torp in organizing this event.  I attended all the workshops and sessions at the conference.  To say that it was inspirational was an understatement.  The presenters mostly were people who have implemented Lean with considerable success.  They were passionate about its success and promise.  Many of the presenters were from companies that have not only weathered the economic strong, but are prospering.  One company has doubled in size in the past 18 months — to 400 or so — at the expense of a competitor that went out of business because they could not compete with a Lean company.

An interesting aspect of Lean is that almost all the companies practicing it, require their suppliers to be lean organizations, too.  The reason: Lean works.

I see Lean as a significant trend, embraced by management and workers alike.  If you are not Lean now, you must be, and soon!

Cheers,

Dr. Ron