Case Study 5: Eliminating the risk of change

An electronics manufacturer has four high volume assembly plants that used three old-technology solder pastes to join electrical components to circuit boards.  The circuit boards were used in high reliability products.  Acme wanted to replace the solder pastes with a single solder paste.  Newer solder pastes were identified that offered better properties, and at a lower cost.  The project team just needed to convince the customers and the manufacturing engineers at the assembly plants that a change was low risk.

How did the materials engineering perspective help mitigate the risks?

It was necessary to evaluate the effects of the new solder paste on manufacturing throughput and yields and on product reliability.  Solder pastes from three suppliers were identified. After an initial evaluation of three new materials, one was selected for further evaluation. The material was put through a variety of materials evaluations, manufacturing tests, and reliability tests to compare its properties and performance to the three original materials. A specification that outlined the solder paste materials properties in detail was written and used as the basis for monitoring and improving the quality of the incoming solder material.

The new solder paste met all of the requirements for improved improve product quality, manufacturing capability, and manufacturing throughput.  Furthermore, it cost 30% less than the three old pastes.  After the evaluations were complete the implementation began and was 80% complete after one year. The annual savings were $500,000, a one year return on investment.

Data driven decisions

The materials characterization and testing enabled the product managers to make decisions based on data, not intuition.  Furthermore, they were able to make a data driven case for the change to the customers.  Finally, the manufacturing engineers got data that addressed the manufacturing capability of the solder pastes being considered.