Having returned from the IPC Apex trade show and listening to comments from stakeholders who are charged for volunteering their time to develop standards, one wonders if there is a better way.
Having spent four years of my career in standards development, I know the process well. Groups of engineers, often from competing companies, gather around tables to debate the ins and outs of everything from what an end-product should look like and how it should perform to the placement of commas and the meaning of “shall” versus “should.”
The process can – and does – take years, at great costs in time and travel. And the outcome can sometimes leave the stakeholders wanting.
“In God we trust. All others must bring data.” That was the mantra one enterprising task group chair would remind attendees prior to each meeting.
And yet … in the typical debate, honest opinion – not rigorous fact-checking of the evidence – was the norm. And sadly, the end-product is often ignored by most of the companies that worked so hard to deliver it.
I am certainly not questioning the integrity of those involved in the process, many of whom I know and hold in high regard.
Rather, I’m wondering whether there is a better way, in the era of artificial intelligence, to achieve the desired results.
I can’t imagine how much it costs for the defense contractors to fill up, say, the J-STD-001 task group room four or more times a year in their relentless pursuit of another revision. I have to think, however, that the Pentagon could instead command its contractors to produce the design, manufacturing yield, and field data for all its electronics products. It could then stuff all that information into a database, corral a few AI experts to ask the right questions, and produce a truly data-driven electronics soldering specification, all up to date and at much lower cost.
I believe standards should represent the minimum end-product requirements for performance. They should be up to date, reflecting the best practices known in as close to real time as possible. And above all, they should truly represent the data, not the best guesses, of their audience.
There’s more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. This would be one way to get there.
Wither Industry?
Some readers doubtlessly see college as a huge profiteering money-suck. I am not one of those. My parents were both college professors and I grew up in the shadow of one of the country’s leading Tier 1 research universities. Funding was scarce and competition fierce.
But I also recognize that American colleges today are often dramatically disconnected from the professional workplace, and that not only reflects negatively on their academic leaders but also has profound effects on the student body. I have raised this issue before and will resist the urge to revisit it here. Instead, I want to point out how the opposite can also be true.
To wit: One of the academic licensees of our Certified Printed Circuit Design Professional curriculum wanted to arrange a tour of a manufacturing facility for its students. They reached out to a local assembler, to no avail.
On their behalf, I then tried three more assemblers, all local to the college, and some of whom employed several graduates of the same institution. Not a single callback.
Knowing how badly our industry needs new workers, it’s obviously discouraging to see in real time how little effort they put into ensuring their own future.
An industry that complains that colleges aren’t producing enough engineers, let alone engineers with knowledge of their processes and products, yet can’t spare an hour to talk with those same college students, gets what it deserves.
P.S. We are just coming off an exhilarating PCB East! Those who missed it should check out PCB Detroit, our design and manufacturing technical conference and exhibition on the campus of Wayne State University. It takes place June 15-16 and features many of the top names in printed circuit design and manufacturing.
Mike Buetow is president of PCEA (pcea.net); This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
