IPC President’s Award: Dr. Thomas Marktscheffel

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

The IPC President’s Award is given to IPC members who have exhibited ongoing leadership in IPC and have made significant contributions of their time and talent to the association and the electronic interconnect industry. Individuals can receive this award only once.

At ASMPT SMT Solutions, Thomas Marktscheffel, director of product management software solutions, is responsible for the SMT line software portfolio. As a member and leader of several IPC committees, he is also a driving force for global industry standards such as IPC-2591 CFX and IPC-HERMES-9852, which make it possible to provide plug-and-play connectivity for intelligent SMT Factories. In 2015, he participated in the IPC-1782 A-team and subsequently joined the IPC-2591 CFX standard A-team, which became the new SMT industry communication standard following its first release in March 2019. He was also active on the IPC-HERMES-9852, IPC-2551, IPC-2552, and IPC-2553 teams, with the overarching goal of providing a reasonable set of IPC standards for the Factory of the Future. He is currently chair of the IPC 2-10 Committee, co-chair of the IPC-2591 CFX Task Group, and chair of several A-teams.

Nolan Johnson: Thomas, congratulations on receiving the IPC President’s Award. It sounds like this award is a result of the work you’ve done in helping bring CFX to fruition after the untimely passing of Michael Ford?

Thomas Marktscheffel: Thank you, Nolan. I’ve worked on several IPC standards since 2015, including CFX, which all together comprise IPC’s Factory of the Future. One of the last major discussions Michael and I had was about the alignment of these standards and that certain topics had not yet really been covered, such as the Digital Credential Exchange. We want to kick that off at the IPC APEX EXPO. Other standards also need to be aligned because the linkage between the standards had been mainly on their own.

When we started traceability in 2015, nobody thought about the link to sustainability or other data. But when working with Michael and sustainability came up, there was this notion, “Didn’t you explain the same thing already with traceability? Didn't you explain it here and here?” We said, “Yes, there are commonalities, and we need to realign all these standards to better serve this idea of the Factory of the Future.”

Johnson: How did you feel when you found out you would be receiving the award?

Marktscheffel: It’s a great feeling to be recognized for what I did with the IPC teams. There were all these ideas in the room that I had shared with Michael, and someone had to take over. It was an interesting step to proceed into more than what I had done before. With Chris Jorgensen, IPC director, technology transfer, in agreement, I started to look into these overarching topics like the Electronic Product Design Data Group, and Factory of the Future, and how to link it all together.

While working on CFX as a team was interesting, what truly excites me now is the overall linkage of different standards, such as sustainability, traceability, digital twins, and more.

Johnson: This award is also about leadership. What have you learned about leadership through this process over the past couple of years?

Marktscheffel: When I joined the teams led by Michael Ford, everything was easy. I was just a member of the working groups. I saw that some people were working, others were motivated to work, and some just wanted to listen to be sure the standard would avoid going in the wrong direction.

When I later took over from Michael, I suddenly found that I needed to take care of getting people excited about the topic. You need to find the right people and get them together in some of the new committees. It is really moving well, especially with sustainability because there are a couple of people who are interested and who are driving it.

That’s what I like about this leadership. It’s a good feeling when people respond and move a topic forward. They’re not forced to do the work; it’s all voluntary and based on motivating them. That’s something I learned from the past year and also the years before when leading these committees.

Johnson: It’s a special skill to motivate someone to move from the audience to join this volunteer group.

Marktscheffel: It's really two-sided. You need people who are motivated, but of course, you need someone to pull the trigger.

Johnson: You're working in a really interesting spot because the work of you and your committee is so forward-looking, defining where we're going rather than what we can do or where we've been. What's exciting for you and your employer about this industry right now?

Marktscheffel: I have more than 25 years of experience in this industry, working for ASMPT SMT Solutions, where the intelligent factory concept with comprehensive connectivity plays a key role in making electronics manufacturing future-proof and profitable. One thing about the Factory of the Future is that it starts now, we are looking at the “future” today. We’ve done some work in the past and what I like about this is how fast things are progressing and developing. We are not standing still. I think about how the standards we’ve developed and the technologies we thought about in the past are now available. Five years ago, I don’t think anyone thought about AI or data analytics.

But the question is, “How do I use them?” If I want to use AI, which one do I use? There are so many options. All these technologies are now in place. Now we can say, “How do we change our processes, and how do we change people to adapt to that?” It’s an evolving process and I like that.

Johnson: We really are sitting here on the cusp of the factory of the future.

Marktscheffel: Yes. Usually, we have something to work with, and then we can sit and think about other great ideas. What concepts can be applied immediately and also point to the future?

Johnson: Agreed. Again, congratulations on this award. It’s well deserved.

Marktscheffel: Thank you, Nolan. It’s nice to be recognized for the work we’ve done.