I am not in the habit of talking bad about competitors. I have actually done repair work on many occasions for Aetec International and although I find it surprising that they can't fix their own manufacturing mistakes, I would never use this to make a company look bad. However since they basically contracted us to fix their mistakes, with no intention to pay for the work I find it repulsive that this company can continue to use the system this way to defraud the industry of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And although my loss is one of the lowest in a long long list of deceived suppliers, ex-employees, partners, at $6700, its worth warning my colleagues, suppliers and customers about.
Since closing down its Tempe location and operating a plant in Costa Rica, Aetec has not paid us for work done over 2 months ago. They issued us a contract from the address they no longer occupy, they have ignored emails, phone calls and hung up on us when we requested the new address.
" After learning what they have done in the past to other vendors, and the actions of their employees, I have no doubt that there was never any intention of Dan Stuber to pay for our services rendered in June of 2008".
(Despite the cost reductions of cutting all the Tempe Arizona jobs and manufacturing in Costa Rica) to this day they refuse to pay the local Arizona, US vendors for the materials and repair work?
Through our own channels we have located Aetec International. Here is their local address:
They are now operating as ICM Inc.
Aetec is now operating as the following company.
ICM Inc.
4809 East Thistle Landing Drive, Ste. 100
Phoenix AZ 85044
Aetec International , from what I have learned from other distributors and board vendors, has had a long term reputation for not paying their suppliers. Despite being participant, (and I say participants since upper management consists of 1 individual and his lawyer partner) in this form of legalized theft, I won't mention the name of the 4 or 5 remaining employees (yet). I can see through maricopa.gov webstite that some form of legal action has been taken by 3 other individuals, perhaps past employees. I also saw a judgement against Aetec from Arrow Electronics for over $434,000.00 I have personally tried to reach the owner/president of Aetec for three weeks now, with no response.
Here is a link to some of Aetec's civil case history: (they also have justice court cases)
Aetec Civil Legal History
Here is a partial list of US electronics companies and suppliers that Aetec Inc., (ICM Inc. now) has refused to pay for materials or services which are in collections.
Bisco
Redboard
Carlton Bates
KR Anderson
First Phase Technologies
Arrow
To quote more than one source "be very careful dealing with that company". If you have your own case history regarding Aetec International, please comment....
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Are We Best of the Best and Frequently Perfect?
Interesting thing about low volume manufacturing is that although the opportunity is there to be perfect, (zero defects on a 5 pc order is better than Six Sigma right?) unfortunately, so is the opportunity for disaster. One pin, on 1 IC, on 1 board out of 5 not soldered and depending on your history with the customer, (and very likely if its your first build) it might be find another vendor time!!
Situations that challenge perfection:
This is not to say that the contract manufacturer will not offer the opportunity for mistake.
Are they the "Best of the Best"? How is this gauged?
Are they "Frequently Perfect"? What challenges does the customer present to keep this from happening?
Do they respond effectively to feedback on defects and do they provide adequate root cause and corrective action?
Although the CM can always provide a corrective action, they are not in a position to change the root cause if its design related. Is the customer, or OEM receptive to DFM issues that are root cause for defects?
Is the CM dedicated to continuous improvement?
I can confidently answer Yes, to all of these questions, but hey, I own the company...What does my customer think?? We'd love to know!
Situations that challenge perfection:
- Incorrect Bill Of Material
- Poor Silkscreen and/or drawing (missing designators, missing polarities)
- DFM issues with layout (solder mask, pin spacing etc..)
- ECN's / modifications
- Compressed delivery schedule
This is not to say that the contract manufacturer will not offer the opportunity for mistake.
- Human error
- Less than optimum reflow profile
- Failure to interpret notes correctly (or ask)
- Pin 1 or Polarity Interpretation (diodes and IC's can have many confusing markings)
Are they the "Best of the Best"? How is this gauged?
Are they "Frequently Perfect"? What challenges does the customer present to keep this from happening?
Do they respond effectively to feedback on defects and do they provide adequate root cause and corrective action?
Although the CM can always provide a corrective action, they are not in a position to change the root cause if its design related. Is the customer, or OEM receptive to DFM issues that are root cause for defects?
Is the CM dedicated to continuous improvement?
I can confidently answer Yes, to all of these questions, but hey, I own the company...What does my customer think?? We'd love to know!
Monday, August 11, 2008
Business Partner or Just Another Supplier?
Are you a supplier or business partner to your customer? Any contract manufacturer fortunate enough to maintain a business relationship with another organization for an extended period of time, lets say 2 or more years, to me is a business partner. Not in the true shareholder sense of the word, but as two or more organizations who join forces to foster growth, revenue and profit. Two years is certainly a long enough time to give as well as take. I can honestly say that some of my customers I work with closely with (daily in most cases) I feel like we are partners and I believe that the feeling is mutual. I'd do whatever I can to see that their projects are handled effectively.
Unfortunately, others you may not work closely although within the same organization quite possibly view you as just another supplier. For some who have no firsthand experience working with you, or perhaps have not had the opportunity to see your company go the extra mile, your services may seem a dime a dozen or worse yet, expendable. I have made the mistake of assuming my customers whole organization should think we're great because of continued success with a particular group or engineering division. I have actually found myself being offended by parts of the company who weren't aware of my track record and question our capabilities. I realize now that I need to re-evaluate how I interact. I need to treat each new division, group and individual as if it were a new organization and we're starting off for the first time in business despite my previous success. Hey, I love what I do, I find it challenging and it keeps me going. I am confident that I have one of the best manufacturing team in the business, frequently perfect and always the best.
Unfortunately, others you may not work closely although within the same organization quite possibly view you as just another supplier. For some who have no firsthand experience working with you, or perhaps have not had the opportunity to see your company go the extra mile, your services may seem a dime a dozen or worse yet, expendable. I have made the mistake of assuming my customers whole organization should think we're great because of continued success with a particular group or engineering division. I have actually found myself being offended by parts of the company who weren't aware of my track record and question our capabilities. I realize now that I need to re-evaluate how I interact. I need to treat each new division, group and individual as if it were a new organization and we're starting off for the first time in business despite my previous success. Hey, I love what I do, I find it challenging and it keeps me going. I am confident that I have one of the best manufacturing team in the business, frequently perfect and always the best.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Low Volume, Root Cause & Corrective Action
Applying volume production control practices to low volume or prototype manufacturing is impractical. I am writing here to familiarize customers with some of the variables in low quantity, high mix, complex PCB assembly.
Here is what I can tell you about a quantity of 5 or less being built by contract: Most organizations are not going to program pick and place equipment for quantity of ten or less, let alone buy all parts on tape & reel for low qty builds. Its not that they wont, its that the customer will not want to pay for it.
Some CM's may tell you they'll automate it (because the perception is that robots are more accurate than humans...right?) NO - here's the reality: Every new program set up will require that feeders and feeder pick positions need to be adjusted. The program essentially goes through a "debug" process while the feeder pick is fine tuned. What this means is that parts are not being picked (which means they are not being placed). Parts are possibly being dropped in transition from the feeder to the placement location. The first 3 to 5 boards could very likely have parts missing, parts placed in the wrong direction or orientation or any number of placement errors. Not a big deal getting through the learning curve if you're running 200 boards, but certainly a futile effort if all your building is 3 to 5 units!
We can justifiably reach the conclusion that 3-5 pieces is a highly manual operation whether you waste your time setting up pick and place equipment, or you prepare placement charts for print, place and oven reflow. Ultimately any workmanship errors fall on the contract manufacturer. Root cause, on the otherhand.... Not necessarily.
Human Error
The operator, being human, made a mistake, an oversight. Corrective Action? If you have an experienced hard working assembler or inspector, perhaps making less than 1 mistake every 10000 components placed or checked, is there a root cause or corrective action? If your placing over 600 components of 200 different types, manually, the opportunity for humanity to come through is great....and sometimes does.
Designed For Manufacturing (or Not)
I had one manual placement job in which a BGA device was placed on one side of the board and a device of weight and mass designed to be reflowed on second pass (topside of the PCB) was placed on the opposite side. These parts were designed to be reflowed on the same side, but you have to solder the second on the opposite side by hand because they drop during second pass reflow upside down. The surface mount pins of this device were almost inaccessible when placed next to each other. The operator could not make adequate contact with the soldered lead and the pad. He or she did their best to solder it. It appeared to be soldered but was not. Product ships then test engineering finds the lead to be open..
The root cause is the design flaw, not the operator. The corrective action is to layout both parts on the same side of the board so they can reflow in an oven as they were designed. A corrective action may also be to layout the parts to space them further apart to improve soldering iron access.
My point here in this article is that when you have a highly automated production job, the opportunity to identify root cause, implement corrective action and process improvement is significant. When you are building 3, 5 or even 10pcs of a PCB assembly, the process is highly manual, there often is no "process variable" to improve on. I also wanted to point out that often the root cause and corrective action can be outside of the contract manufacturers control.
Here is what I can tell you about a quantity of 5 or less being built by contract: Most organizations are not going to program pick and place equipment for quantity of ten or less, let alone buy all parts on tape & reel for low qty builds. Its not that they wont, its that the customer will not want to pay for it.
Some CM's may tell you they'll automate it (because the perception is that robots are more accurate than humans...right?) NO - here's the reality: Every new program set up will require that feeders and feeder pick positions need to be adjusted. The program essentially goes through a "debug" process while the feeder pick is fine tuned. What this means is that parts are not being picked (which means they are not being placed). Parts are possibly being dropped in transition from the feeder to the placement location. The first 3 to 5 boards could very likely have parts missing, parts placed in the wrong direction or orientation or any number of placement errors. Not a big deal getting through the learning curve if you're running 200 boards, but certainly a futile effort if all your building is 3 to 5 units!
We can justifiably reach the conclusion that 3-5 pieces is a highly manual operation whether you waste your time setting up pick and place equipment, or you prepare placement charts for print, place and oven reflow. Ultimately any workmanship errors fall on the contract manufacturer. Root cause, on the otherhand.... Not necessarily.
Human Error
The operator, being human, made a mistake, an oversight. Corrective Action? If you have an experienced hard working assembler or inspector, perhaps making less than 1 mistake every 10000 components placed or checked, is there a root cause or corrective action? If your placing over 600 components of 200 different types, manually, the opportunity for humanity to come through is great....and sometimes does.
Designed For Manufacturing (or Not)
I had one manual placement job in which a BGA device was placed on one side of the board and a device of weight and mass designed to be reflowed on second pass (topside of the PCB) was placed on the opposite side. These parts were designed to be reflowed on the same side, but you have to solder the second on the opposite side by hand because they drop during second pass reflow upside down. The surface mount pins of this device were almost inaccessible when placed next to each other. The operator could not make adequate contact with the soldered lead and the pad. He or she did their best to solder it. It appeared to be soldered but was not. Product ships then test engineering finds the lead to be open..
The root cause is the design flaw, not the operator. The corrective action is to layout both parts on the same side of the board so they can reflow in an oven as they were designed. A corrective action may also be to layout the parts to space them further apart to improve soldering iron access.
My point here in this article is that when you have a highly automated production job, the opportunity to identify root cause, implement corrective action and process improvement is significant. When you are building 3, 5 or even 10pcs of a PCB assembly, the process is highly manual, there often is no "process variable" to improve on. I also wanted to point out that often the root cause and corrective action can be outside of the contract manufacturers control.
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