The Data Brings Us Together

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IPC APEX EXPO 2024 wrapped up after a week of immersion in printed circuits and electronics manufacturing, so why did I keep thinking about wood joinery as I flew home rather than fabrication and assembly?

Dovetail joints are an elegant and effective way to create a corner joint between two pieces of wood. Done well, dovetail joints don’t require any fasteners, often get by without any glue, and the joint can withstand loads in nearly all directions. The dovetail interface itself seems simultaneously simple and complex.

While in Anaheim, I kept looking for the one key theme at the center of innovation in electronics manufacturing, but I came up empty. From my perspective, IPC APEX EXPO showcased five major areas more or less equally, with these trends dovetailing together to create a greater, stronger whole.

Trend No. 1: Accessibility
Process interoperability and automation—spurred on by big data developments—have chipped away at any previous “walled garden” data models. All that process data isn’t considered vendor-proprietary any longer, and that shift changes things. At the association level, this kind of accessibility is being reflected in the industry. Cases in point are the iNEMI/IPC collaborations on strategic market reports and the latest version of the iNEMI technology roadmap (reconfigured for easy research and made available to the public at no charge). The IPC/WHMA partnership continues to blossom as well, creating a more seamless flow between wire harnesses and assembly.

Trend No. 2: Increased collaboration
This increased accessibility can be traced to increased collaboration throughout. At IPC APEX EXPO four years ago, I asked CFX leaders, “Now that CFX is creating all this data, how do we make it useful?” At that time, the responses were visionary and a look to the future. Now, companies from a variety of sectors are working together to move that data up the stack from sensor to data to analytics to action.

To read this entire article, which appeared in the 2024 issue of Show & Tell Magazine, click here.