• Digital Edition
  

FEATURES

• The Hidden Factory
  Eliminating Muda: One Company’s Journey
  When the Milwaukee Electronics Companies decided to implement Lean manufacturing principles in 2003, its implementation team thought the major benefit would be increased throughput on the manufacturing floor. While those goals were achieved, the most significant lesson learned was the true bottleneck lay in supply-chain management.
  By Don Sivilotti

• Cover Story
  Selective Wave Soldering DoE to Develop DfM Guidelines for Lead and Pb-Free Assemblies
  The reduced pallet opening size on a selective wave solder pallet hampers the ability to successfully fill PTH barrels, a problem amplified when using Pb-free alloy due to differences in fluid properties. An intensive DoE finds several ways to quantify the impact of design, component spacing and hole-fill criteria in terms of DPMO.
  By Makram Boulos, Craig Hamilton, Mario Moreno, Ramon Mendez, German Soto and Jessica Herrera

• Test Developments
  Overcoming Limited Access at ICT
  A new novel technology delivers in-circuit test stimulus signals via a boundary scan device, a method said to reduce the number of ICT probes needed to test all the board components – and the ICT system cost, too.
  By Jun Balangue

FIRST PERSON

• Caveat Lector
  ‘Virtually’ exciting.
  Mike Buetow

MONEY MATTERS

• Focus on Business
  Candidness beats surliness.
  Susan Mucha

• Global Sourcing
  This QML should be trashed.
  Greg Papandrew

TECH TALK

• On the Forefront
  Are there any bright spots?
  E. Jan Vardaman

• Screen Printing
  Good chemistry.
  Dr. Rita Mohanty

• Tech Tips
  Tricked out.
  American Competitiveness Institute

• Reflow Soldering
  The 7 key profile parameters.
  Ursula Marquez de Tino

• Process Doctor
  XRF, examined.
  Terry Munson

• Pb-Free Lessons Learned
  Hard data ease hole-filling.
  Chrys Shea

• The Defects Database
  Plating adhesion problems.
  Dr. Davide Di Maio

• Getting Lean
  Ten Lean lessons.
  Chris Munroe

• Technical Abstracts

DEPARTMENTS

Industry News
Market Watch
Product Spotlight
Ad Index
Assembly Insider

On the cover: A DoE offers optimized solder pallet designs for selective soldering. (Photo courtesy Celestica)