Mentor Blogs

Should we focus more on measuring the results, or the process that get us there? This is the constant balancing act that we all address. I personally prefer to work on the processes that ensure high quality. But without some measures on quality, how do we know these are working? Until someone invents a foolproof process, I would guess we still have to do both. We can, however, take steps to remove … Read More

lean manufacturing, FMEA, Manufacturing costs, zero defects, Yield, corrective action, PCBA, Defect opportunities, Quality, Route cause, CAPA, Manufacturing execution system, Manufacturing System Solution, Defects

I still get surprised, and occasionally disappointed, when I talk to production folk about quality. I still hear comments like, “our quality team deal with that”. or “we should talk to our Quality manager”. when what we are really talking about is making products error free. I guess we don’t help ourselves by using terms like ‘right first time’ & ’zero … Read More

PCBA, Quality, corrective action, Defect opportunities, CAPA, Route cause, Manufacturing execution system, Yield, Defects, zero defects, lean manufacturing

I hope to see some Mentor customers at the SMTA conference this fall in Florida. I have the privilege of presenting a paper on Failure Mode Effects Analysis and how we can apply this methodology in electronics manufacturing. Its a specialist topic, but has great resonance with what we are trying to achieve in manufacturing. Allowing us to produce higher quality products from the analysis of potential … Read More

Manufacturing execution system, corrective action, zero defects, Defect opportunities, CAPA, FMECA, PCBA, Quality, lean manufacturing, Route cause, SMTA, FMEA

Did any one spot the misspelling of ‘Quality’ in the header of my last blog? I wish I could say it was a deliberate error to entice comments from my quality conscious readers. But sadly it was just an defect. One letter missing from around a thousand. Making my defect per million opportunity rate 1,000 DPMO. Believe me it would be much higher if it were not for spell checker. Back to … Read More

Manufacturing execution system, lean manufacturing, Manufacturing System Solution, corrective action, Yield, Defect opportunities, CAPA, iNEMI, IPC, PCBA, Defects, Quality, dpmo

Why IT managers are engaging in manufacturing Quality improvement. I guess the first question we should ask is; why IT Managers? Increasingly IT managers are taking ownership for all factory infrastructure software solutions, including MES and Quality. For Quality this largely takes the form of the IT manger being handed legacy Quality data collection solutions from engineering departments. At this … Read More

Manufacturing costs, Legacy, Manufacturing execution system, corrective action, Quality, Defects, sql, CAPA, Manufacturing System Solution, IT Manager, lean manufacturing, infrastructure, PCBA, IT

Test is not ‘Quality’: Firstly I should declare an interest; I am a test guy. I like the technical challenge of solving difficult test problems. And have been lucky to have worked on some interesting test challenges. But I still get surprised when I hear comments like “we have an extensive test process to ensure product Quality”. My surprise comes from my view, that whilst … Read More

PCBA, corrective action, Crosby, Yield, zero defects, CAPA, Philip Crosby, Manufacturing execution system, Quality, Manufacturing System Solution, Route cause, lean manufacturing, test engineer, Manufacturing costs

I have been in many situations in the past where we had a manufacturing problem to solve. In all instances the first step was to find the scale of the problem, look for linkages to the route cause and then ‘go fix’. Simple right! Well not back then; The fist hurdle was always having accurate data for both the problem which might be a drop in test yields, beneath a sea of false calls, defective … Read More

Quality, Business Intelligence, corrective action, BI, Route cause, Manufacturing execution system, Manufacturing System Solution, Defects, lean manufacturing