![]() ![]() Hartley: Another suggestion would be for PCB designers and EEs who work together to get closer. I consistently experienced issues and delays that could have been so easily avoided if we would have just had a conversation before things became problematic. It resonates with me because I come from the manufacturing and assembly side of the electronics industry. You need to understand board fabrication, board assembly, and testing, and what impact you have on all three disciplines. Hartley: It does, doesn't it? And that's one of the things I would say, if you're an EE or a printed circuit designer if you're involved in any way in the decisions that go into designing the printed circuit boards, you need to understand the manufacturing processes. Warner: I know a lot of fabricators that wish more designers took that proactive approach. ![]() I can't design circuit boards correctly unless I design to the processes they're using. Ever since then, I've subscribed to multiple manufacturing magazines because I want to know what the manufacturing world is doing differently than they did last year, what's new, what's coming. Hartley: It was the best week of training I've ever had in my life. Warner: What a great and unique opportunity for all of you! He taught us how we affect manufacturing and how manufacturing affects us. Attendance was mandatory for everybody in engineering, EEs included, to sit through this entire week of training. He was a manufacturer who understood design. Anybody reading this interview who is an old-timer will recognize the name and they're smiling right now as they're reading because Norm was a PCB god back in the day. We made a conscious decision as a company to hire Norm Einarson. I don't know anything about manufacturing. But once I thought about it, I realized, they're right. It didn't fall to the floor, it went into the floor! It literally took me a week to recover from that. Everything you design is impossible for us to build." My ego fell through the floor. You people are so clueless, it's amazing. Back in the '77-’78 time frame, when I first became a printed, one of the fabricators that our company used sat me and the other printed in the company down and said, "We understand that the engineers in the company love you guys because you're both engineers who chose to become printed designers,” and we smiled and nodded knowingly like, "Yes, we're wonderful people, we know that.” Then they looked at us and said, "You guys may understand circuits and may understand how they work, but you know nothing about manufacturing. What other pieces of advice would you give to an engineer or PCB designer today? The first time we met, we were ranting about how we both wished more designers would spend some time visiting their board suppliers and learn more about how boards are manufactured. ![]()
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