Trouble in Your Tank: Can You Drill the Perfect Hole?
It’s Only Common Sense: Your Guide to Better Time Management
Dan's Biz Bookshelf: 'Move Your Bus'
Prototron Receives MIL-31032 and AS9100 Certifications
October 22, 2019 | Steve Williams, The Right Approach Consulting LLCEstimated reading time: 7 minutes
O’Neil: Right. It has improved most of those metrics, and it just gives us and Dave Ryder, owner and president, a good view of where we’re at on a monthly basis. He participates in that meeting, although he’s not a member of the TRB nor part of the group that handles MIL-31032 because the owner can have a lot of influence. Dave lets us be independent and run the business how we see it, and when he has questions on the measures he sees every month, we have answers.
Williams: You said you had your 136th meeting, which I happened to sit in on this morning. If you look back to when you first started, the presentations were a lot shorter because there was less content. Now, you have way more to look at, but the meeting is shorter.
O’Neil: And that’s a byproduct of taking care of systemic problems. I’ve had this saying throughout my career, “Once you start measuring something, it automatically gets better.” We’ve done some good things with fronting conflicts where there has been a difference between the print and what we have on our photo plot sheet, for example; we’ve reduced those because we started measuring those types of things and working across various teams. We had our inside sales group sit with our operations group to solve that problem, and having the business and TRB meeting all in one is working well for us.
Williams: Another thing you have added here in the last couple of years that has paid dividends is measuring things in manufacturing and office functions to identify issues, such as something that comes out of engineering incorrectly or is the wrong revision. That has driven not only improvement in those areas but in manufacturing as well because they don’t see those issues anymore.
O’Neil: Absolutely. It’s not a good thing when you get the final and find out the revision on the print is not what you’re working there, and those incidents have decreased. They get into shipping, there are no questions, and you’re off to the races with getting good products out to your customers.
Williams: Kim, thanks for your time. It has been a pleasure.
O’Neil: Thank you, Steve.
Visit I-007eBooks.com to download The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to… Producing the Perfect Data Package from Prototron Circuits and other free, educational titles.
Page 2 of 2Share on:
Suggested Items
Moog Announces Acquisition of COTSWORKS
07/07/2025 | BUSINESS WIREMoog Inc., a worldwide designer, manufacturer and systems integrator of high-performance precision motion and fluid controls and control systems, announced the acquisition of COTSWORKS Inc., an aerospace and defense fiber optics transceiver component manufacturer, for a purchase price of $63 million.
S&K Aerospace Awarded Major Contract Under DLA Maritime Acquisition Advancement Program
07/02/2025 | BUSINESS WIRES&K Aerospace, LLC has been awarded a significant contract under the Defense Logistics Agency’s (DLA) Maritime Acquisition Advancement Program, managed by the U.S. Naval Supply Command - Weapon Systems Support (NAVSUP WSS) in Mechanicsburg, PA.
Green Circuits to Exhibit Full-Service Electronics Manufacturing Solutions at 2025 SMD Symposium
07/02/2025 | Green CircuitsGreen Circuits, a full-service Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) partner to leading OEMs, is pleased to announce its participation in the 2025 SMD Symposium, taking place August 5-7 at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
I-Connect007 Editor’s Choice: Five Must-Reads for the Week
06/27/2025 | Nolan Johnson, I-Connect007While news outside our industry keeps our attention occupied, the big news inside the industry is the rechristening of IPC as the Global Electronics Association. My must-reads begins with Marcy LaRont’s exclusive and informative interview with Dr. John Mitchell, president and CEO of the Global Electronics Association. For designers, have we finally reached the point in time where autorouters will fulfill their potential?
Knocking Down the Bone Pile: Tin Whisker Mitigation in Aerospace Applications, Part 3
06/25/2025 | Nash Bell -- Column: Knocking Down the Bone PileTin whiskers are slender, hair-like metallic growths that can develop on the surface of tin-plated electronic components. Typically measuring a few micrometers in diameter and growing several millimeters in length, they form through an electrochemical process influenced by environmental factors such as temperature variations, mechanical or compressive stress, and the aging of solder alloys.