It’s just not up to standard
04 September 2007
There is a difference between standards and legislation. In a perfect world we would have globally recognised legislation that revolved around globally recognised standards. Sadly I don’t think this would ever be achievable.
The trouble with legislation is that the legislators always have a vested interest and for all that it doesn’t always appear this way, that vested interest is usually towards its own indigenous electronics manufacturing industry.
Certainly if you include enforcement within legislation then there seems very little willingness for governments to appear to be penalising its own manufacturing industries. The European courts are not exactly packed with repentant electronics manufacturers apologising for ignoring the RoHS Directive! This is not a surprise. Is a Government really likely to penalise its own manufacturers when the perception exists that other countries are not being so diligent (i.e. competitors are getting away with it)?
A further problem with harmonising legislation is that even when it exists on a reasonable large scale (e.g. throughout the EU) it still needs to be written into a country’s own legislation. As a government does this, it listens to industry representatives and the final version can be adjusted accordingly and with local variations added in. So cross-border legislation ends up being inconsistent, both in its substance and its enforcement.
Standards are a different issue. In fact there were two related issues that provided the stimulus for writing this. The first was an article that the IPC wrote for me (click here online). To coincide with my magazine’s 25th anniversary and the IPC’s 50th anniversary, the article took a historical look at the evolution of the IPC standards, particularly the IPC 610, and the role it plays in the global (not just American) industry. The second issue was the small storm blowing up over the quality of Chinese manufacturing, which I wrote about in last week’s newsletter (click here online),. There is an argument to say that the former could be the answer to the latter’s problem.
There are innumerable standards to cover different industries in different countries, some required to meet legislation, other to meet industry standards and yet more, often the most demanding, to meet the requirements of individual companies. At the same time many companies around the globe are increasingly referring to IPC 610 as a working guide. Being essentially a guide to good practice, is there any reason why its use could not be accelerated by making it the bedrock of all these other standards? I am aware that such detail as the volume of solder on each joint, or even the subjective issues like the appearance of a good lead-free joint, are unsuitable for high volume board testing. But suppose a system existed where any assembled board could, for example, be classified at level 1 – assembled by an IPC Global Standard trained workforce; Level 2 – boards batch tested to IPC Global Standard; and Level 3 - boards individually passed to IPC Global Standard.
Boards wouldn’t need to be classified but if they are not, then that is a statement in itself.
The attraction of this system would be that it could form a standard building block of any other standard and a sensible basis for new legislation. Other standards look at corporate procedures, management of the supply chain, environmental performance and so on – but these are not the main concern of the user or buyer of the board – the important thing to them is that they have an assembled board of a pre-defined standard. Having a global standard that made this definition sets out the core objective of any manufacturer. How they make this board in terms of corporate or environmental performance is another issue, but not the most important issue for the customer.
Going back to my earlier comments about China, it is obvious that a global benchmark would help everyone concerned and any company that could not meet the benchmark would soon be filtered out, whatever the country or continent. I’m not saying it would be easy, or who could lead such a project, but it could be possible.
If you have any thoughts on this or anything else in this newsletter do let me know.
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