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Qualifying a PCB Facility: Survey or Audit?
December 24, 2013 |Estimated reading time: 1 minute
The History of Qualifying a Fabricator
First, let’s clear up any confusion regarding surveys and audits. The definition of “survey,” according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, is “to go around and approach (people) with a request for opinions or information.” Webster’s also defines “independent audit” as one “made by professional auditors who are wholly independent of the company where the audit is being made.”
I learned this back in the '70s, when I was in charge of our company’s customer surveys. As I recall, each survey had a different twist depending on my position at the time. As manufacturing manager, I directed it a certain way. I would dazzle the customer with equipment capabilities and processes. Later, as a sales manager, I shared our customer base. I impressed the buyer by telling him that we were building boards for some of the Silicon Valley’s best companies. I showed off our most difficult boards to give the buyer the idea we could build their designs.
As president of the company in the '80s and '90s, I invited customers in and asked for any opportunity to come and survey us. “Oh, you need a 12-layer? We can do that; here’s a 36-layer board.” We sold on perception.
As a fabricator, we didn’t know in detail what the customer was looking for. They had their own agenda. Come to find out it was to get a feel for the facility and our staff. There were no real quality details in a survey. I could tell some of these people just wanted to get out of the office; they had a few notes on a clipboard and they asked for the latest buzz words. So we showed off our lab, handed out safety glasses, and spent time in waste treatment.Read the full article here.Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the November 2013 issue of The PCB Design Magazine.