How Productivity Equals Profitability in Manufacturing
Just 1% more productivity in a factory line can equate to 3% more profitability. Dr. Ron Lasky, Senior Technologist at Indium Corporation, explains to...
Dr. Ron
Response-To-Pause: Solder Paste Printing in SMT
Phil Zarrow: Ron, we’ve discussed that performance of materials can affect productivity, and hence profitability. Can you give us an example? ...
Improving Uptime and Productivity in Electronics Assembly
Dr. Ron Lasky, Senior Technology at Indium Corporation, explains how simple tweaks to day-to-day operations can drastically improve electron...
Handbook of Electronic Assembly Now Available
Folks, It is hard to imagine, but it has been just a little short of 13 years ago that Jim Hall, Phil Zarrow and I approached SMTA’s JoAnn Strom...
Phil Zarrow Weighs in on Productivity
Folks, I ran into good friend Phil Zarrow the other day. Phil, Jim Hall, and I developed the SMTA Certification Prog...
Alloy Melting
Folks, Richard asks: Dear Dr. Ron, Recently we had a solderability problem with tin-finished component leads and SAC305 solder paste. One of our...
What is Cicret and why is it important?
Folks, Let’s check in on Patty…… Patty had to admit that she was getting annoyed. Two of the female engineering students were alwa...
Using the "Wet Gold" Technique to Measure Densities of Less Than 1
Folks, Suresh writes: Dear Dr. Ron: Can densities of less than 1 g/cc be measured with the “Wet Gold” technique? Well, to tell the truth, ...
The False Positive Paradox
Folks, Let’s check in on Patty….... Patty was intensely preparing a lecture on Bayes’ Theorem. She always felt that this theo...
Comparing Two Weibull Distributions
Folks, Let’s look at Patty’s last day of class…... As she was driving north to teach her statistics class, Patty was sad to see her...
Weibull Analysis at Ivy U
Folks, Let’s check in on how Patty is doing at Ivy U. Patty was nearing the end of her teaching stint at Ivy U. Only a few more classes re...
Handbook of Electronic Assembly Now Available
Folks, It is hard to imagine, but it has been just a little short of 13 years ago that Jim Hall, Phil Zarrow and I approached SMTA’s JoAnn Strom...
An Example of Cpk and Non Normal Data In Electronics Assembly Soldering
Folks, Let’s see how Patty is doing after teaching her first class at Ivy U… Patty arrived at home after teaching her first class at Ivy ...
My BBC Interview on Tin Pest
Folks, Imagine my excitement when Laurence Knight of the BBC contacted me to see if I was interested in being interviewed on the topic of tin pest, wi...
The Importance of Oxygen Barrier in Solder Pastes
Folks, Pity the solder scientists of the late 1970s and early 1980s. SMT was an emerging technology and the world wanted to buy solder paste.&nb...
Lack of Concern for Tin Pest as a Reliability Issue in Mission Critical Products Still Hard to Understand
Folks, My recent post on tin whiskers sparked the memory of tin pest in my mind. I have to admit, that with all of the legitimate reliability co...
Dartmouth Student Asks Questions About SACm® Solder Alloy
Folks, Some years ago, a leading IC manufacturer decided that their R&D effort could benefit if analyzed for possible improvement – by hirin...
Density Calculation Still Raises Questions
Folks, It is hard to believe, but I have been blogging now for over......
SMTA Process Re-Certification
Folks, It was at SMTAI in 2002 that SMTA Process Certification began. The program was developed by a Jim Hall, Phil Zarrow and&nb...
RoHS Medical "Per Homogeneous" Conclusion
Folks, Let’s see how Patty and Pete are doing with their Medical Device RoHS Crisis….. Patty and Pete sat in a plane on the runway of the...
"Per Homogeneous Material" Also Applies to Medical Devices Under RoHS
Folks, It’s been awhile, let’s see what Patty is up to… Patty was in her office, finishing lunch and reading Golf Digest. She...
RoHS Recast Includes Medical Devices
Folks, I was at the St Guadens National Historical Park a few days ago. Augustus St Guadens is considered by many to be America’s pre...
First Pass Yield Continued
Folks, Let’s see how Patty is doing with her latest challenge….. Patty had decided to call The Professor and see what advice he had to of...
The Limits of Mixing: A Chocolate Chip Example
Folks, We tend to think of mixing as something that can completely even out those things being mixed. As an example, let’s assume you are ...
The Right Climate Stuff Research Team Hits the Mark
Folks, Many agree that the greatest technical achievement of human kind was landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. (Just think a...
Measuring Void Content and Further Global Warming Musings
Folks, A reader writes: Dear Dr. Ron, I need to measure the void content of an alloy. Is there an easy way to do it? After a little thoug...
"How to Create a Mind": A Thought-Provoking Book By Ray Kurzweil
Folks, Let’s step away from electronics assembly challenges, and deep considerations of solder paste, solder preforms, and wave soldering, ...
Special Cause and Common Cause Variation and Knob Twiddling: continued
Folks, Let’s see how Pete is handling the wave solder crisis. Pete had to admit that he was surprised by the positive outcome of his meeting wit...
Special Cause and Common Cause Variation and Knob Twiddling
Folks, It’s been a while. Let’s look in on Patty…... Patty stared, bleary eyed, at her laptop screen. It was the day after th...
Statistically Significant vs Practically Significant Results in SMT Assembly
Folks, Everyday, we are exposed to the results of surveys and polls. A typical example might be that President Obama is leading Mitt Romney in a...
Improved Solder Density and Solder Paste Volume Fraction Tool
Folks, It is hard to believe that I have been blogging for over 7 years now. In all this time it has surprised me how much interest there has be...
Cleaning No-Clean Solder Paste Residues in SMT Assembly
Folks, There is a lot of interest in cleaning PCBs that have been assembled with no-clean solder pastes. Recently I discussed the topic with my ...
Musings on Electronics Assembly Metals: Gold Unified a Country
Folks, In Ken Burn’s excellent miniseries The Civil War, Shelby Foote states that the Civil War made us a country by uniting No...
Profitability Potential in Printed Circuit Board Assembly
Folks, The impetus for writing the Patty and the Professor series, in 2009, <posts here> <hardcopy book here> came from my obs...
Tin Wiskers, Solder Alloy Density, Safety: Sharing a Few Comments
Folks, Some time ago I wrote a post, “In Search of Tin Whiskers,” Michael responds below. He makes some good points. Dr. Ron, ...
Musings on Metals: Copper
Musings on Metals: Copper It could be argued that civilization began with the smelting of copper. Although thousands of years before, humans fir...
iPad and Kindle Fire? Don't Throw Away Your PC Yet
Folks, One of the nice aspects of being a Professor at Dartmouth is teaching a course like ENGS 1: The Technology of Everyday Things. This cours...
Patty Presents Her Electronics Assembly Copy Exactly Strategy
Folks, Patty is getting ready for her meeting on “Copy Exactly” with Mike Madigan….... It was after 6:30 PM and Patty was just arri...
Electronics with 40 Year Shelf Life
Folks, A reader writes: My company makes an electronic product that requires a 40 year shelf life. We assemble with tin-lead solder on FR-4 PWBs....
Patty Cost Analyzes an MRI scan
Folks, Let’s see how Patty is doing with the latest crisis…… Upon hearing Claire Perkins inform her that Rob was in the hospital, ...
Patty Pitches NMAC/I/O
Folks, Patty arrived at work an hour early to prepare for her meeting with ACME CEO Mike Madigan. Nineteen days ago, he had asked her to develop ...
End of the Year Thoughts
Folks, I thought I would post a few short thoughts as the new year begins. Here it goes: 1. A......
Patty Seeks the Ultimate Electronics Assembly Productivity Metric
Folks, Let’s look in on Patty…... Patty was just finishing a report on work that she and Pete had performed with a team of her ACME colle...
Statistics: How Unusual is the New Orleans 0-11 Coin Toss Loss?
Folks, In addition to electronics assembly productivity, solder paste and solder preform applications, and other electronics assembly concerns, many o...
QFN Reliability in SMT Electronics Assembly
Folks, Let’s look in on Rob: Rob looked at the new photo of Patty and their twin sons Peter and Michael. What a handful those two 18 month-...
Weigh In on the Lead-Free Soldering Consensus Topics
Folks, Some time ago, I mentioned that I was working on a consensus of the status of lead-free/RoHS compliant assembly. My hope is to find dat...
Lead-Free Consensus Update
Folks, In gathering information on the status of lead-free soldering, some helpful friends pointed out two great sources of information: NA...
Lead-Free Soldering: Striving for a Consensus
Folks, Recently I posted a note about a flurry of Technet posts in which I was misquoted regarding the status of lead-free electro...
Happy Birthday RoHS!
Folks, It was five years ago today that RoHS was launched, amid concerns that the world of electronics would collapse due to the......
Lead-Free Soldering Reliability: Dr. Ron Accused of Being, "Motivated Only by Greed"
Folks, Here is an interesting turn of events related to the reliability of lead-free (Pb-free) soldering reliability....
Peter Borgesen Weighs in on Lead-Free Solder Reliability
Folks, I met Peter Borgesen back in the mid 1980s when he was a research scientist at Cornell working with Professor Che-Yu......
Bismuth Solder Alloy Follow On
Folks, A few people asked some questions after my last post on bismuth solders. Here they are:......
Has the Time Come for Tin-Bismuth Solders?
Folks, When the industry was preparing to transition to lead-free solders almost ten years ago (can it have been that......
Solder Metal Prices Skyrocket, Especially Silver
Folks, Many people have been infatuated by the price of gold in recent months, but the price of silver has also skyrocketed. In 2000 silver was a...
Charles Kettering IV and Elise Morrison
Folks, I try to take my students to dinner 3 or 4 at a time, two times a week or so. This term it will be a challenge to......
Dr. Ron's Class at Dartmouth is Largest of the Summer Courses
Folks, My class at Dartmouth, Materials: The Substance of Civilization has attracted almost 200 students or about 19% of the class of 2007. The 2007 s...
So, How Is This Blog Thing Working?
I am occasionally asked about Indium’s corporate blogging activities. Many of the questions are very general- probably since blogging is so new ...
Dr. Ron and His English Longbow
Folks, In addition to working with my wonderful friends and Indium Corp and teaching statistics and manufacturing process courses at Dartmouth, I have...