2005 Articles

Nestled in a tidy industrial park just off the Philadelphia International Airport, so close its parking lot could serve as a runway for a small plane, lies the American Competitiveness Institute.

It is safe to say that very few of the thousands of folks circling overhead everyday realize the extent to which they rely on what the folks are cooking up in the six-story building just beneath them. A not-for-profit that operates under the auspices of the U.S. Navy, ACI (aciusa.org) exists to look at new technologies and decide where they could go into the fleet. Its income comes from Navy contracts which support ACI’s work with prime contractors to get technology into ships. As part of its investigations, ACI looks at commercial products, observes how PCBs and components are processed, and determines how they might be translated into high reliability use. Programs come from top-tier military contractors like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, the Office of Naval Resources and sometimes from ACI itself. Housing a state-of-the-art test facility on its 36,000 sq. ft. premises, the group is a second source for environmental, mechanical and electrical testing, and maintains its independence by reporting directly to the ONR.

Because of its mission, ACI should be forgiven if they seem to be moving counter to the prevailing winds. A project recently set underway is a course on how to maintain lead in soldering. “We want to be able to discern if lead is in a product,” explains Bob Berta, business development representative. To do so entails reviews of everything from traceability to the use of x-ray fluorescence, for which ACI enlists the services of one top-of-the-line Fisherscope XRF. On the drawing board is a SEM (scanning electron microscopy) study of intermetallic growth in SAC 305 solder alloys over time and at various temperatures.

The hidden gem of ACI is its staff. The 55 employees have an average 17 years of experience in electronics manufacturing, from both the commercial and military worlds. Take senior manufacturing engineer Lee Whiteman, who worked for Lockheed-Martin. Or senior manufacturing engineer Fred Verdi and lead research associate Dr. Rajan Deshmukh, veterans of AT&T Bell Labs. Many of the technical staff have advanced degrees in electrical and mechanical engineering, materials science and chemistry. They are prolific authors and well-known technical experts. Some, like Verdi, have written IPC standards. Deshmukh ran XRF operations at AT&T for several years. Equipment advisory board coordinator Jeff Stong is a veteran of the assembly equipment world.

Better still, when it comes to sharing the fruits of their collective wisdom, even commercial companies can benefit. The ACI Helpline (610-362-1320) provides four free hours of independent technical consultation per year, “independent” being the operative word. Says Berta: “ACI is in position to be direct. We try to solve the problem immediately.” In my 15 years in this industry, I can’t think of any other organization that can say that.

ACI also acts as something of a consensus builder. In July, it organized a meeting of Department of Defense policy setters to review the state of lead-free electronics. Over 45 high-level staff from the Army, Navy, Air Force, NAVSEA and other agencies were on hand to review and debate the three questions most vital to the high-rel sector: What do we know, what do we need to know and how do we get there?

Behind ACI’s Naval façade is a sea of pragmatism. According to Whiteman, who organized the DoD summit, “The military is 1 to 2% of electronics use worldwide. When the commercial industry goes lead-free, [the military] will have to, too.”

ACI offers hands-on workshops in various manufacturing practices that go well beyond most commercial endeavors, some lasting as many as 80 hours. (ACI calls the sessions “boot camps,” a tongue-in-cheek nod to its military ties.) More than 1,500 engineers and operators are trained in its classrooms each year. (Under ACI’s domain also lies the Electronics Manufacturing Productivity Facility, which it took private in 1995, giving it further training expertise. The EMPF operates as a National Electronics Manufacturing Center of Excellence, with funding coming from industry, academia and government.)

Next up: Process audits. As of my visit in late July, ACI engineers had performed “four or five” audits of manufacturing lines. With lead-free on the horizon, the timing couldn’t be better to have an independent, knowledgeable source of third-party validation.

As an industry resource, ACI is hidden in plain sight, too busy with its many programs to spend resources tooting its considerable horn. Before calling on them for help, however, readers should be warned: you might come away with more answers than you thought you needed.

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