-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- pcb007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueThe Growing Industry
In this issue of PCB007 Magazine, we talk with leading economic experts, advocacy specialists in Washington, D.C., and PCB company leadership to get a well-rounded picture of what’s happening in the industry today. Don’t miss it.
The Sustainability Issue
Sustainability is one of the most widely used terms in business today, especially for electronics and manufacturing but what does it mean to you? We explore the environmental, business, and economic impacts.
The Fabricator’s Guide to IPC APEX EXPO
This issue previews many of the important events taking place at this year's show and highlights some changes and opportunities. So, buckle up. We are counting down to IPC APEX EXPO 2024.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - pcb007 Magazine
Communication, Part 3: Why Do Board Shops Ask So Many Questions?
October 18, 2019 | Steve Williams, The Right Approach Consulting LLCEstimated reading time: 4 minutes
Editor’s note: Read Part 1 and Part 2, and stay tuned for Parts 4–6 of this series.
In Part 3, Bob Chandler from CA Design and Mark Thompson from Prototron Circuits speak with Steve Williams about the importance of preparing, sending, and receiving comprehensive (and ideally, perfectly complete) design data packages. If you’ve ever wondered why the CAM department asks you so many questions, read on.
Steve Williams: The topic we’re going to cover today is why board shops ask so many questions of the customer, whether they’re a contract manufacturer, an OEM, or a design service. Mark, can you start?
Mark Thompson: Ultimately, it’s to clarify the engineer’s intentions and ensure that they’re building to the engineer’s wishes. An example of that is editing drawing notes. If you have 15 notes that aren’t relevant to the board design, don’t call them out; get rid of them. That way, they don’t create questions or lead to phone calls from the fabricator. Sometimes, the drawing notes are completely wrong. I had an occasion this morning, where I had a wrong callout for impedances. The drawing called out layers one, three, four, and eight, and while looking at the data, I saw that they were actually on layers one, three, five, and eight. Miscommunication like that could create havoc.
Williams: I know that CA Design is very good with its documentation packages. Why do you think this is so difficult for some companies?
Bob Chandler: Everybody likes the idea of standard notes because they never have to touch them. The problem arises when the standard notes are there as a starting point, not an ending point. Many engineers rely on the standard notes as being the ending point and think that they don’t even have to look at them.
Williams: With the influx of new engineers entering the business that don’t have as much experience, do you think that plays into this problem?
Thompson: Without a doubt. You’re going to get phone calls, saying, “Is that a note I even need?” I’d say, “Yes, but it depends on what your intentions are. What’s your job or board application?
Chandler: Many of them are engineers, and the EEs are doing their own layout for board a year. Meanwhile, a PCB designer may do one board a week and know to change the notes, but an engineer might not.
Williams: Mark, how do you find a balance between where you need information versus bothering the customer by asking too many questions?
Thompson: If I run into something that I know the answer to already, I ask it in such a way that it’s a foregone conclusion. With netlist anomalies, for instance, a good designer always builds in an A-ground to B-ground short. But instead of calling and saying, “I’m stopping the job because you have an A-ground short,” I’ll say, “you’ve defined it as net zero or net one, which looks very much intentional. Can we safely proceed?”
Another example would be castellated holes or edge-plated holes. It screens who this is going to be making a connection to a post at a later point. I’ll come up with exactly 16 broken nets, but I’ll count around the periphery of the board and see that there are exactly 16 castellated holes again. If I can make it a foregone conclusion, it comes off a little bit better and takes the pressure off of them from saying, “That’s a silly question.”
Williams: Bob, at CA design, do you have design ownership on anything you’re doing, or does that go back to the customer?
Chandler: That goes back to the customer; our clients always own the data.
Williams: So, you have another layer of communication to manage where you might have to go to your customer and all the way back through that supply chain.
Chandler: That’s right.
Williams: Again, one thing that can bother a customer is asking lots of questions, so how do you avoid that?
Thompson: I gather all of the questions at the first possible chance. I can’t tell you how many times a CAM operator will say they have a problem and ask me one question. I’ll respond, “Have you ran a full analysis yet?” We’re not going to ask the customer one question at a time and take the risk of making them angry; ultimately, I aim to ask all questions at once.
Williams: Excellent. Any parting words of wisdom on this topic, Bob?
Chandler: Designers need not to take it personally when a question comes up.
Thompson: I agree.
Williams: That’s a great point because a lot of times, they do take it personally, and then they don’t want to go back to the customer for some reason.
Thompson: Correct. They might think it reflects badly on them but doesn’t. You have to answer these questions. Sometimes, I’ll get situations where if I’m going through a middle party, they won’t understand what the intention of the question is; they’ll say, “Can you call the end-user?” And because we have over 5,000 customers, I frequently call the end-use customer directly, but only with the authorization of that middle person.
Williams: This is an important topic. Thanks for bringing some light to it.
Steve Williams is the president of The Right Approach Consulting and an I-Connect007 columnist.
Bob Chandler is CTO of CA Design (cadesign.net) and a senior Allegro/OrCAD trainer and consultant.
Mark Thompson, CID+, is in engineering support at Prototron Circuits and an I-Connect007 columnist. Thompson is also the author of The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to… Producing the Perfect Data Package. Visit I-007eBooks.com to download this book and other free, educational titles.
Suggested Items
I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week
05/03/2024 | Nolan Johnson, I-Connect007This week’s most important news is strategic—and telling. When one puts together the IPC industry reports, we simply have to include the recent conversation with Shawn DuBravac and Tom Kastner. On the design side, check out the latest “On The Line With…” podcast featuring Brad Griffin from Cadence Design Systems, discussing SI and PI in the realm of intelligent system design.
Synopsys, Samsung Electronics Collaborate to Achieve First Production Tapeout of Flagship Mobile CPU
05/03/2024 | PRNewswireSynopsys, Inc. announced that Samsung Electronics has achieved successful production tapeout for its high-performance mobile SoC design, including flagship CPUs and GPUs, with 300MHz higher performance using Synopsys.ai™ full stack AI-driven EDA suite and a broad portfolio of Synopsys IP on Samsung Foundry's latest Gate-All-Around (GAA) process technologies.
Altair Acquires Research in Flight, Forging a New Path for Aerodynamic Analysis
05/03/2024 | AltairAltair a global leader in computational intelligence, announced it has acquired Research in Flight, maker of FlightStream®, which provides computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software with a large footprint in the aerospace and defense sector and a growing presence in marine, energy, turbomachinery, and automotive applications.
Real Time with… IPC APEX EXPO 2024: Software Solutions for Circuit Board Challenges
05/03/2024 | Real Time with...IPC APEX EXPONolan Johnson speaks with Will Webb from Aster Technologies about their software solutions for design teams, manufacturing, test engineers, and process engineers. Aster's software addresses the increasing complexities of circuit boards and the need for alternative testing methods.
Real Time with… IPC APEX EXPO 2024: My Role as a Technology Solutions Director
05/02/2024 | Real Time with...IPC APEX EXPOPeter Tranitz, senior director of technology solutions at IPC, shares insights into his role as the design initiative lead. He details his advocacy work, industry support, and the responsibilities of the design initiative committee. The conversation also covers the revamping of standards, the IPC Design Competition, and the implementation of design rules in software tools.