Particle Update

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Duane

I’ve been ignoring my Geiger counter for awhile now, but I picked it back up and made some progress again. For some reason, I just wasn’t getting the 555 based HV power supply to generate a high enough voltage. In frustration, I bypassed the 555 and fed a PWM signal in from a microcontroller board that I have laying around.

That fixed the problem. I still don’t know why I wasn’t able to the the 555 doing what it was supposed to do. I’ll have to spend some more time on that some other day, but for now, I’ve prototyped it out and I’m happily detecting particles. I whipped out the new layout and will send off to Sunstone.com for another set of PCBs.

I’ve also replaced the Atmel chip with a PIC. I don’t have anything against Atmel. I’m just more familiar with PICs. Once I’ve built a few of these, I’ll change to really small packages — QFNs or BGAs for the chips — to make the board a little more fitting with our assembly capabilities. The SOIC chips are fine, but our machines don’t even come close to breaking a sweat with things that big.

Duane Benson
We treat agoraphobia for PC boards

 

blog.screamingcircuits.com

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Can Cook Take the Heat?

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Mike

CEO Tim Cook has taken to the Apple airwaves, rebutting claims made by The New York Times and others that company indirectly contributes to worker abuse but not rejecting Foxconn as a supplier.

In a letter, published yesterday by 9to5mac, Cook wrote, “Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain. As we reported earlier this month, we’ve made a great deal of progress and improved conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. We know of no one in our industry doing as much as we are, in as many places, touching as many people.”

I’ll address the second point first. It’s true Apple has been singled out for bad corporate behavior toward Third World workers, while companies such as Dell and H-P are equally reliant on their supply chains (often the same suppliers), yet receive far less flak. It says here Apple is getting the brunt of bad publicity for good reason. The company has struck a wholly sanctimonious tone toward those who dared criticize its leadership. It has been strident in its support of Foxconn, the biggest (in size and in number of incidents) purveyor of recorded worker abuses. Apple on any given day is the largest (by market capitalization) company in the world. If a critic wants to make a point at a company’s expense, who better than Apple? Frankly, HP and Dell have been so beset by internal management problems, attacking them for supply-chain problems seems somewhat quaint by comparison.

As for the first point (“Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain.”), the truth is Apple does not visit every one of its suppliers every year. In 2011, Apple conducted 229 audits, 100 of which were first-time audits. According to the company, 97% of Apple’s procurement expenses are from 156 vendors. Incredibly, by Apple’s own admission, the logic says it audited many of its suppliers for the first time in 2011. (Either that, or the math isn’t working out, unless Apple is churning its supply base — composed primarily of well-known companies in their respective fields — with great rapidity, or that supply base is adding new plants with even greater rapidity, because the number of first-time audits has been at or over 100 three years running.)

I commend Apple for bringing some degree of transparency to the issue. But the numbers don’t quite add up. Nor does the nagging feeling that Apple, which perhaps has no parallel when it comes to leveraging a supply chain for competitive advantage, could effect positive change at places like Foxconn and Pegatron, if only it were willing to shoulder the financial risk.

When you have $100 billion* in the bank, you can afford to stop by each of your suppliers at least once a year. And when you’re the biggest company in the world, and apparently comfortable lecturing anyone else on what they should think, then you’d better be able to handle the blowback. If Cook can’t handle the heat, he should get out of the kitchen.

*Actually $97 billion.

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Mike’s Main Man

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Mike

He wasn’t yesterday, and he might not be tomorrow, but for today, Tim Main is my hero.

The Jabil chief today became the first major electronics executive to publicly rebuke Foxconn, the world’s largest EMS company. At its annual shareholders meeting, Main asserted that Foxconn has “some very abusive policies, employment policies. And I think their business will begin to suffer because of the way they treated their employees.”

OK, so it doesn’t rise to the level of Occupy Shenzhen, but for our little tightly wound industry, this ranks as an outburst. And there is perhaps some risk involved in making such statements. Jabil has been taking on a bigger helping of Apple’s pie, with Main today suggesting the visionaries behind the iPad and iPhone now represent more than 10% of the contract assembler’s revenue. Foxconn’s success has been tied in so small part too that of Apple’s and vice versa. For Apple to cut the cord, or even let it fray a bit, would run directly against the many years of staunch support for its China CM.

Then again, perhaps Jabil’s gains are coming at Foxconn’s expense, and Apple is basing its procurement decisions not just on cost and execution but also other, more humane factors.

Or so we can hope.

Way to go, Tim.

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When Did Illiteracy Become a Skill?

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Mike

Making its way around the blogosphere is this New York Times’ article detailing the migration of Apple from the US to China.

According to the piece, Americans, Apple asserts, can’t match “the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers.” “We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The US has stopped producing people with the skills we need.”

With all due respect to the late Mr. Jobs, this is complete bull.

When all manufacturing equipment needs to be icon-based because the migrant workers who run it can’t read, that hardly qualifies as “flexible.” “Dumbed-down” is more like it. Since when is illiteracy a skill?

American engineering prowess is second to none. It’s difficult to find even a single feature — voice calling, GPS, web browsing, MP3 — on an iPhone that wasn’t invented at least in part in the US. The ideas conceived daily by our military contractors are matched only by their amazing ability to turn those ideas into reality. We have developed, for example, a weapon system that begins as an 18″ inch tube, but when launched, “sprouts” rigid wings like a hawk and rises thousands of feet, where it is invisible to detection. That device can then zero in on a designated target miles away, and once locked on, will thrust itself toward its “prey” — even if the latter is moving — and plant its payload — a bomb — in its target’s chest.

By contrast, what exactly is it Steve Jobs’ conceived — the rectangle?

Another current Apple executive reportedly said, “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.” Non sequitur aside, what that arrogant remark ignores, of course, is that without American laws, Apple likely would no longer even exist. Indeed, Bill Gates provided then-struggling Apple with $150 million in 1997 and US anti-trust laws for years forced Microsoft to capitulate on its bundled software products in order to keep the competition alive.

There’s another missing point. High volume manufacturing is still performed all over the US, just not in electronics. So as we move toward more lights-out/true full automation factories for building electronics, there’s no reason to think that product won’t be built in volume here, too. Keep in mind that following the flooding in Thailand and Malaysia and the earthquake in Japan, the cluster factory model so popular in Southeast Asia is not looking quite so good.

And another! Apple’s outsourcing overseas model works well for building mobility products. It doesn’t work so well when you are outsourcing tractors. Jobs’ hubris led him to extrapolate that he since so good in design, he must also be brilliant in economics and sociology. Not even.

Apple now has nearly $100 billion in cash on hand. But it can’t afford American engineers? Huh.

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A New Assembly Metric

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Dr. Ron

Patty arrived at work an hour early to prepare for her meeting with ACME CEO Mike Madigan. Nineteen days ago he had asked her to develop an electronics assembly metric that would correlate with profitability. This metric would, in turn, be able to help pinpoint opportunities for improvement. He gave her 3 weeks, so she was two days early. Mike was in town to meet with Sam Watkins, the local plant manager, so he ordered that they meet.

Patty had quickly identified non-material assembly cost per I/O (NMAC/I/O) as a good metric candidate. She went to five of ACME’s plants and, after a day or two at each one, she collected all the data she needed to prove her point. Rob helped by writing an Excel macro that would calculate NMAC/I/O and plot it versus profitability. The correlation coefficient was an outstanding 0.983.

While visiting the five factories, she tried to learn why those that had a poor NMAC/I/O were performing poorly. After a little checking, she and Pete discovered that the poor performing sites typically had lines that were not time balanced, had slow component placement machines, and occasionally had very slow printers or solder paste with poor response to pause. There was even one plant that was using a full wave solder process, when only eight solder preforms would have done the job in the reflow process. None of these “problems” would show up if you were only tracking line uptime. In light of this situation, she also developed a plan to use NMAC/I/O to identify and implement opportunities for improvement.

As Patty headed toward Sam’s office, Sam’s administrative assistant invited Patty into the conference room to allow Patty to get her laptop set up. Just as she finished setting up and her Powerpoint presentation was on the screen, Sam and Mike walked in.

“Coleman, we’re counting on you to take us to the next level,” Mike said a little gruffly, “so let’s get this show going.”

Patty looked at Sam and could tell that Sam was uncomfortable with his boss’s abrupt demeanor.

“I performed quite a bit of research and concluded that non-material assembly cost per I/O is the best metric,” Patty started.

“That’s great Coleman, but what the hell is non-material whatever you said,” Madigan interrupted.

Patty’s cellphone vibrated, but she ignored it.

“Non-material assembly cost per I/O is the total cost of running a factory less the components, hardware, and PWBs used. Some people call this the conversion cost,” Patty answered.

“If you think about it, it is almost obvious that this is the best metric,” Patty went on, “as it measures all the non-material cost divided by how much we produce.”

“I get it,” said Sam. “We are producing I/Os or solder joints, we measure the total cost to make solder joints and divide by the number of solder joints. It’s that simple.”

“Precisely,” Patty responded.

“I understand now why uptime alone wasn’t a complete metric. You can be up and running, but be doing it inefficiently,” Mike said with a rare smile on his face.

Patty’s cellphone vibrated again.

“Exactly,” Patty commented.

“OK, so we are going to measure NMAC/I/O,” Mike commanded, “How does it correlate to profit?”

“It is nearly perfect,” Patty said.

They continued their discussions and reviewed Patty’s plan to improve productivity at the sites with a high NMAC/I/O. Patty would take the lead on this effort.

As Patty got up to leave, Mike commanded, “Oh, and Coleman, find out why so few people use NMAC/I/O.”

Patty thought this was something to discuss with the Professor.

As Patty walked out of Sam’s office, Clare Perkins, Sam’s Admin stopped her.

“Ms. Coleman, your mother-in-law called, Rob has been taken to the hospital,” Clare said.

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WEEE Recast Gets Electric

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Chris Jellen

In Brussels, on Jan. 19, Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik said he was pleased with the overwhelming support given by the European Parliament to an updated Directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). A majority of MEPs voted in favor of a deal.

Lots of excitement for this measure; you could say the atmosphere is electric.

WEEE — when executed — sets preconditions for professional recycling of valuable raw materials like:

  • gold
  • silver
  • copper
  • other rare metals contained in used TVs, laptops and mobile phones.

Currently only one third of electrical and electronic waste in the European Union is reported by EU Member States to be separately collected and appropriately treated.

Citing “challenging times” and “rising prices for raw materials,” Potocnik made a good point that resource efficiency is where environmental benefits and innovative growth opportunities for European industry come together.

“The waste stream with the greatest relevance in this respect is electrical and electronic waste,” he said. “Today, the European Parliament has given a great boost to this policy, raising the binding collection levels to 85% by 2019.”

WEEE work. The new Directive will force exporters to test and provide documents on the nature of their shipments when the shipments run the risk of being waste. Illegal shipments of WEEE disguised as legal shipments of used equipment, in order to circumvent EU waste treatment rules, are a serious problem in the EU. The new WEEE Directive will also give EU Member States the tools to fight illegal export of waste more effectively.

The so-called WEEE recast also calls for harmonisation of national registration and reporting requirements under the Directive. In collaboration with Member States, the Commission will endeavor to adopt a harmonised format to be used for the supply of information in registers for producers of electrical and electronic equipment.

Administrative burdens are consequently expected to decrease by around EUR 66 million per year.  For Americans and WEEE, not much has been said yet.  There’s a wait-and-see air about it, but respectfully so.

WEEE all the way home?  The vote means that co-legislators agree on a common text. This will need to be formally adopted by the Council of Ministers in coming weeks.  Here’s what’s being asked:

Member States will be required to collect 45% of electrical and electronic equipment put on their markets by 2016, and then achieve 65% by 2019, or may opt alternatively for a target of 85% of waste generated. Some Member States will be able to derogate from these targets where justified by lack of necessary infrastructure or low levels of EEE consumption.

The existing binding EU collection target is 4 kg of WEEE per capita, representing about 2 million tons per year, out of around 10 million tonnes of WEEE generated per year in the EU. By 2020, it is estimated that the volume of WEEE will increase to 12 million tons. The new target, endorsed by Parliament, an ambitious 85% of WEEE generated would ensure that around 10 million tons, or roughly 20kg per capita, would be separately collected in 2020.

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Hitachi Exits TVs

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Mike

Hitachi plans to outsource all its television production, becoming the latest Japanese OEM to exit TV manufacturing.

Which EMS company will benefit?

My money’s on — who else? — Foxconn. A year ago, Hon Hai (Foxconn’s trading name) reportedly was planning to invest in Hitachi’s Display Products Group. (Foxconn has a history of supporting the companies with which it hopes to do assembly or ODM business, and already builds TVs for Sony, Sharp and others.)

Meanwhile Flextronics, which has opened up considerable capacity by exiting the ODM PC business, does not seem to be a contender. The EMS company says it is trying to reduce its exposure to high-volume consumer electronics (along with its inherent cyclicality and margin-challenged ways).

Some of the other Taiwanese ODMs, such as Wistron and Pegatron, may be in the mix. Toshiba has history with both. Toshiba also  outsources some television production Konka Group in China.

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Mils v. Mils

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Mike

From my early editor days, I’ve expressed thousandths of an inch in numerical form, not as X mils. So, for example, instead of “1 mil,” I would write “0.001.”

After 20 years, I am rethinking that convention. (I keep hoping it will all be overcome by a shift to metric, but that’s not just happening very fast now, is it?) And I am willing to accept reader input. Which do you prefer: mils or numbers?

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Salaries in Environmental Risk Management and Related Fields

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Kal

The median annual salary for a Certified Industrial Hygienist in the USA is $72,356, according to good sources.*  It’s $76,000 per year according to other good sources.**  And some sources, like www.Indeed.com, said it’s $100,000/year.

Given that Environmental Risk Manager is a hot term for — well — someone responsible for a large part of the EHS responsibilities, we researched that title.  Notably, we discovered that Risk Management salaries in general are skyrocketing – as this graphic shows.  But more specific to us, we discovered that the average salary for an Environmental Risk Manager is around $75,000/year ($80,000/year in Chicago).

environmental risk manager salary

Then we wondered how this figure was arrived at, and some interesting components came up.  The following graphic is interesting on three levels:  One, because of the salary numbers.  Two, because of the parts deemed associated with an Environmental Risk Manager. And three, because key terms can bolster a bio or CV, anyone freshening up a resume might notice the words “process” and “engineer” are worth some money.

Environmental Risk Manager Salaries

Another salary breakdown: an Environmental Standard Risk Management Development Manager Salary in Chicago, IL averages $90,000/year.  An obscure title, good, because we can look at its parts and get a lot of data.  Do note that the midwest tends to be the lowest geographical segment according to pay scale surveys that break down this kind of thing.

Salary to Manage Risk in Environment

Analysis:  the salary gap  A background in EHS has probably given any professional a perspective on Risk Management.  You might consider re-orienting your bio in that direction for 2012.  That phrase on your CV may put you in a different category where more hiring is happening and the salaries are comparable.

It’s important to emphasize the word “environment,” but always with a “risk management” appendage, to show potential employers that you care about environment, health and safety but you wear shoes, not sandals (but not combat boots either)!

Of course, you can’t call yourself an “engineer” if you aren’t one, but remember that a process can be “engineered.” Also someone has to “engineer” a quality or compliance program.  Just saying.

Another key word for a higher salary we noticed is “strategy.”  If you can “strategize” and “create and drive programs,” you may be wordsmithing your way into a higher tax bracket.  Use these words in 2012!

Finally, one suggestion is to scan the above salary lists and also job descriptions online, like this CIH job post from PepsiCo, and see what other phrases are being used.  Use them.  Then talk your way into a higher salary in 2012.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Guest blogger K.M. Hurley is the Director of Corporate Communications at Actio Corporation.

References

* http://www1.salary.com/Industrial-Hygienist-Salary.html

** http://ohshub.com/average-salaries-industrial-hygienist-certified-safety-professional-ehs-manager/

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List of Lists: State by State Chemicals of Concern

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Kal

The eternal quest for the constantly updated, fact-checked and inter-regional management of chemical data in today’s industry (without paying for it) has just taken a small step forward.  New England’s Northeast Waste Management Officials’ Association or NEWMOA has produced a Chemicals of Concern List-of-Lists, if you will.  It’s live, accurate, and includes data from three states: Washington, Minnesota and Maine — three of the hardest working states on the issue of chemical contamination, particularly as it affects, or potentially affects, children’s health.  (Sources say NEWMOA plans to add California chemicals of concern later this year.)

Meanwhile, the current NEWMOA list of lists is here.

Have a look, and share this blog post with colleagues.  Get the message out.

The Northeast Waste Management Officials’ Association (NEWMOA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan interstate association whose membership consists of the hazardous waste, solid waste, waste site cleanup, and pollution prevention program directors for the environmental agencies in New England states plus a few, like New York and New Jersey.

NEWMOA’s Mercury Reduction Program, for instance, provides useful information and resources regarding mercury reduction in industry, schools and at home.

Free chemical lists. In the past, managing lists of lists has proven so complex and time consuming that only private companies have been able to stay with it over time.  Such companies sell chemical lists and compliance management capabilities for tens of thousands of dollars in annual subscription rates.  Some nonprofits like NEWMOA are wrangling chemical regulatory lists so the public can use them — for free.  Kudos.  Not an easy job due to the constantly-changing nature of the beast(s).

Washington Chemicals of Concern. To implement the Children’s Safe Products Act (CSPA), Washington Ecology developed a High Priority Chemicals list consisting of chemicals identified by a state agency, federal agency, or accredited research university, or other scientific evidence deemed authoritative by the department on the basis of credible scientific evidence as known to do one or more of six criteria outlined in CSPA (70.240.010 (6)).

Washington Ecology, in consultation with the WA Department of Health, then developed a refined list of High Priority Chemicals that manufacturers must report on under the CSPA. This list, the Reporting List of Chemicals of High Concern to Children, includes chemicals that are toxic and have either been found in children’s products or have been documented to be present in human tissue (blood, breast milk, etc.). Of course, the mere presence of these chemicals in children’s products doesn’t necessarily indicate risk of harm; but Washington figured the potential danger to children is worth using these instances as a start point.

Maine Chemicals of Concern. As directed by Maine law, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in concurrence with the Department of Health and Human Services, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published a list of Maine Chemicals of Concern. A chemical may be included on the list if it has been identified by an authoritative governmental entity on the basis of credible scientific evidence as being known as a carcinogen, a reproductive or developmental toxicant or an endocrine disruptor; persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic; or very persistent and very bioaccumulative.

In June 2011, the law setting forth criteria for the designation of chemicals of high concern was amended by passage of LD 1129. The list of Chemicals of High Concern will be published July 2012.

Minnesota Chemicals of Concern. The Minnesota Chemicals of High Concern list contains a variety of chemicals such as pesticides, dyes, solvents, plasticizers, flame retardants, and many others. Each chemical has at least one hazard characteristic that causes it to qualify for the list, such as being neurotoxic, immunotoxic, or being persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic.

California Chemicals of Concern. More on California Prop 65 Chemicals List is available, scroll down page at link for a viewable and downloadable PDF document to have on hand for your records.

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