When you are looking to reduce costs and increase profit margins in your electronics manufacturing, the first thing you tend to do is look at your processes and bottom line.You probably have a measure or system in place which tells you exactly how much money you are losing from scrap and rework, and you may keep track of whether this is increasing month on month, year on year.
Some businesses even go one step further and set a BUDGET for scrap. They accept it as a cost to the business, as an inevitable part of the process.
This is madness.
It is all very well and good for me to offer general pieces of advice that may help you refine your processes, such as ‘be more efficient’, or ‘be more competent. Both of which are true, but neither tell you HOW to do this.
Rather than simply look at your manufacturing process (although you should do this too), try looking first at your PEOPLE. Equipment can be faulty, inefficient, below par, and processes may no longer be logical having added, amended, ‘made do’ in certain areas, but ultimately, your people are what start, execute and pass the boards your manufacture, so let’s start there.
You need to look at more than just departmental or team output, which is going to give you some information, but it probably won’t be granular enough. What is most helpful is looking at every little area you can to build a picture of what is going wrong and why.
Here are some suggestions of where you could look as a starter for ten…
1. How many times has a board been through the system?
A board should go from bare components to a completed board in one pass – this is after all that your customer is paying for. It is ONLY what your customer is paying for. Any additional processing such as rework, repair, and additional inspection/testing is not passed on to the customer, the business has to absorb this cost and it is not always accounted for.
Are you keeping track of how many times a board is having to go back through your manufacturing process?
2. Who has been in contact with the board?
Think about who touches the board during the process. How many people are there?
Consider your assembly operators, reworkers, inspectors, testers, and repair technicians. Make a note of who these people are and at what point they are engaged with the board. Then ask the question – are all of these touch points adding further value and part of the normal assembly process? If at any point the answer is no, this is additional and adds cost.
3. Why has a board been reworked/repaired?
You may already have some of the answers to this – perhaps you are aware that there is a particular issue with soldering and you’ve identified you need to look into training. What you need to pinpoint though is who decides whether a board needs rework or repair?
By focusing on your people, which people make these decisions and on what basis, you will find decisions made by your inspector or their supervisor are the reason why a board has failed an inspection or test and been sent to rework/repair. This is the correct process but are they making the right decisions?!
4. Did the board need any work as per IPC requirements for its class?
You could argue that IPC requirements are not set by your people, and therefore this element of the process is out of your control.
Well. Yes and no.
While external standards are not within your control, whether your manufacturing is up to date and currently based on those standards IS within your remit, and how they are interpreted and implemented by your team also IS within your control.
Who makes these decisions in your team and where does this responsibility lie? Do you know? Get into the details here so you can see exactly where your gaps are.
5. Are you analysing, as well as counting your defects?
Using data from your manufacturing process (usually supplied by your engineering teams) are you looking at the nature of the defects?
How many are caused by process or component faults compared with those caused by human interactions? If human interactions, do you know why, who or where they have come from?
Having more detail here can allow you to see whether you have a mostly process problem, a mostly product problem or a mostly people problem. Prioritise the biggest first and work your way down through the list.
6. Are you measuring output by inspector?
When conducting final checks before the boards are shipped to your customer your inspectors will be giving them a last look to ensure they are fit to leave the premises. They are your last port of call before reaching the customer and are making some of the most important decisions for your business.
You may be aware of how many boards pass or fail at this crucial point, and have some idea of a percentage pass rate, but do you know specifically how many boards are passed or failed by each inspector?
Again, dive into the detail – if you have three inspectors and they have different pass rates you have a problem with consistency for starters. If they all have the same pass rate this could be good news because they agree, or it could be bad news!
Questions is – how do you know?
These are just six areas you can investigate in detail, there are always more.
Often, during this process, it can be hard to remain neutral and objective. You know why something is done a certain way, the history behind it, the operator personally. Therefore, bringing in external help is helpful – I can ask the obvious questions, keep the emotion out of it, and even be your scapegoat when having to implement decisions or commission training!
However you choose to approach it, the expression ‘data is King’ genuinely applies to HOW you get to the bottom of your costs and therefore HOW you can address them. Once you have the information, you can plan a targeted, prioritised approach to solving the issues – the more you get, the better decisions you can make and the greater the impact you’ll have long term.
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