Dear Diary…today I went nowhere
03 March 2008
Don’t worry, I’m not going to share with you my thoughts about what where my neighbours park their cars or my children’s achievements and misdemeanours, or any such inconsequential waffle (inconsequential to you – vitally important to me!). Instead I have a few thoughts about the diary of the average engineer.
In previous columns I have touched on the multi-disciplinary nature of the modern electronics production engineer ( Who are you – engineer, manager or businessman? - July 07), but how many are trained, or even have any formal knowledge, except that which has been gained at the school of hard knocks. I am not, before anyone takes this the wrong way, doubting the ability of anyone to assemble a PCB. My observation is more aimed at awareness of emerging techniques and, more particularly, new legislation.
The evidence is simple. Less people in the ‘developed nations’ go to exhibitions. While Productronica still attracts over 40,000 engineers, and quite rightly holds the mantle of the world’s leading exhibition, this number of visitors is well short of its peak of a decade ago. Nepcon West was the other main global exhibition, but the emergence of APEX has not delivered the same audience as its North American predecessor. So the biggest shows have reduced their scope to become regional, and big regional shows have slimmed down to small national shows.
The exceptions, just looking at visitor numbers are the Far East exhibitions, where the thirst for knowledge seems unquenchable. But even there it seems that the model of having a strong national show is more realistic than reinventing a huge regional exhibition.
So why, particularly in the developed world, are we so reluctant to leave our factories and go out meet our peers and learn new things? Well I have a model in my head of the typical electronics manufacturing facility. It is a model that I have seen replicated on numerous occasions, particularly in my ‘home turf’ of Western Europe. In these factories the people who make decisions simple do not have time to leave their factories. It goes back to my argument that they are managers and businessmen as well as engineers. They are indispensable. They are never ill. They take holidays when forced by neglected partners and families. They (you!) do too many jobs inorder to keep the workforce down and so compete with the lower-cost labour geographies.
This is where market forces come into play. The exhibition companies are businesses themselves and if they don’t attract enough exhibitors then they won’t make money, if they don’t attract enough visitors then the exhibitors are unhappy and won’t exhibit again. We have seen many exhibitions spiral downwards in this way over recent years. The reverse can also be true, a spiraling upwards as an event gains momentum. To achieve this exhibition organisers are constantly being pushed to improve their events. Where in years gone by the sole attraction was the exhibitors and the hospitality they had on offer, now the organisers have been more inventive and come up with conference programmes, seminars, live working areas, workshops, WiFi areas and much more. There really does seem to be more thought and effort going into meeting the needs of the engineer. As a consequence, the modern exhibition can be a far more edifying experience than it has been for years.
And are you engineers responding? Again the attendance figures are not encouraging. However, smaller, dedicated events do seem to be better supported. I have picked out as our ‘event of the week’ a cleaning workshop in the UK from the SMART Group, which I believe is nearly sold out. The SMTA and IPC in North America are running equally successful local and focussed events. In fact maybe it is the success of these very localised and highly targeted events that are making it difficult for the main exhibitions to gain momentum, except in places like China where the smaller event programme is not so established (Although there is an interesting announcement from
the IPC and Beijing’s Tsinghua University in our news this week).
My own view is that it is people who provide guidance, inspiration and the sort of information that sticks. Magazines and the internet are hugely valuable sources of information, but sometimes the information can be as disposable as the medium – information is far more likely to stick if a human being has told it to you face to face. Maybe that’s just me.
However, if you feel the urge to get out and about more we have tried to compile a full list of the main events going on around the world and this can be found at EMTWorldWide Diary . If you know of any events that I have not picked up on then please get in touch with the details.
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