ECD Customers Saving Forty-Seven Percent Production Time

Milwaukie, OR, USA – About eighteen months ago, ECD, a leading designer of thermal profiling products and software located in Milwaukie, OR, assessed the assembly reflow soldering process and determined that many current reflow problems could be solved with consistent, thorough, and accurate thermal profiling. IPC was thinking somewhat along the same line, and issued standard J-STD-075 concerning unexpected thermal sensitivity of even passive components exposed to elevated lead-free-process temperatures. Surveys undertaken at the 2009 APEX show and online, however, confirmed that many otherwise conscientious OEMs and EMS providers fell short on the production verification side of profiling. ECD addressed this problem and developed ThQM™.

ThQM™ (Thermal Quality Management program) got right to the heart of the matter, which was twofold. First, there was no uniform system of communication between EMS provider and OEM. If the EMS provider were offshore, this was exacerbated by language and time-zone barriers and diversity in operator experience levels. Second, thermal profiling was often considered to be a single task rather than a process composed of initial profiling all the way through oven verification (especially necessary in lengthy production runs.) ThQM addresses why both conditions need to change, and provides a working blueprint to facilitate its happening.

Timed to coordinate with this concept, new products such as MEGAM.O.L.E. ®20,

V-M.O.L.E.®, and OVENChecker® were introduced to complement ECD's product line and speed up the steps in the profiling process, making them easier and faster for engineers and more foolproof for operators. This speeding up instead of the perceived slowing down of production time helps eliminate "excuses" for not profiling. The resulting increased profiling helps eliminate scrap, unexpected early field failure, and downstream liability.

As another integral part of ThQM, checklists are provided for each party (OEM and EMS) that cover some key points the contract manufacturer should consider about design, thermal sensitivity, board placement, etc. in order to run a line consistent with the engineer's, solder manufacturer’s, and industry's specifications. Each side of the table has a consistent language and method to tell the other what they need, and the EMS can quickly respond with either assurance of capability to run as requested, or suggestions for modifications. And through thermal profiling which includes oven verification, they can quickly document that the run was according to the initial target profile outlined by the engineer.

The result? ECD has learned from EMS feedback that at the verification stage, for instance, which was previously often skipped to save time, the new single pallet all-inclusive design of the OVENChecker® results in a savings of between twenty and thirty minutes per profile over the thermocouple-attached-to-golden-board approach. That equates to approximately 47% time saved! In addition, they report that it takes less than three minutes to train an operator or technician. It also saves cost from damaging golden boards, extending their life and value as "reference boards."

When asked about this dramatic saving in production time, Grant Peterson, V.P. Marketing & Sales for ECD replied, "We felt that if we could respond to the real production-floor needs of the customer, it was a worthy goal. ThQM seemed logical to us, especially with all the new engineers entering the workforce each year. Somebody had to lay out the process so that both sides – OEM and EMS – were truly communicating, particularly as so much production has been outsourced, and communication has become more complicated. ECD has always been at the forefront of innovation in the profiling industry, and over the last two years we're pleased to say we’ve come up with the tools to both illuminate the process and do the job not just faster, but more efficiently."