Monthly Archives: July 2012

Addressing Ergonomics & Repetitive Motion Injuries in Manufacturing Facilities

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In today’s manufacturing environment, ergonomics and repetitive motion injuries are major issues that every business must address to ensure production levels remain at expected levels and employee injuries remain as infrequent as possible.

Although many of the hand assembly processes have been replaced with automated equipment over the past 20 years, there is still a surprising number of manual operations still required for many applications. A good percentage of these manual assembly processes still involve the use of conventional hand tools, such as pliers, screwdrivers, crimping tools, etc. Whenever a manual hand tool is being used to perform a function, repetitive motion injuries may be the result. Taking steps to reduce or eliminate these injuries before they occur is important.

Whenever the application dictates, replacing hand tools with pneumatic or hydraulic tools should be considered. For example, if a technician is cutting leads on a circuit board for 6 to 8 hr. a day using a conventional cutting plier, the fatigue and repetitive motion factor escalates quickly. Replacing that hand cutter with a pneumatic cutter will dramatically reduce those factors. In addition, production levels will improve. The same process holds true for other hand operations such as crimping, pinching, turning fasteners, etc. Now, not all hand operations can be performed efficiently with a pneumatic tool, but whenever possible, making this switch will yield immediate results.

Typically, pneumatic tools can be operated with either a hand-lever control, or remote footswitch control. Most of these tools can also be hand-held or fixtured for hands-free operation. If the operation does not lend itself to the use of a standard, off-the-shelf tool, a custom designed tool can often be provided to meet a specific application.

Jim Norton is president of Custom Products & Services, Inc. (custom-products.com).

India Goes Dark

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Some 300 million Indians are without power today as no fewer than six states there lost power for an extended period of time. Add this to the growing list of recent potential and real supply-chain disruptions. There are at least 80 EMS companies affected by the outages, based on the number of entries in the CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY Directory of EMS Companies.

While the extended length of this weekend’s outage was an exception, according to Reuters, “blackouts lasting up to eight hours a day are frequent in much of the country.”

This is not to say that companies shouldn’t manufacture in India. However, the national power concerns should be a consideration for those who choose to put all their eggs in one (offshore) basket. Spread the risk.

 

 

 

Cal Prop 65 List + 2

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California’s chemical law known as Cal Proposition 65 requires the State of California to publish a list of chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.  Manufacturers and/or distributors selling products in CA must label products with a Toxicity Warning if the product contains any chemical on the list.

The updated Cal Prop 65 list can be downloaded here, in full. The list below was updated on July 24, 2012, and updates can be viewed in red at the top of the image.  The latest listed chemicals are:

  1. Isopyrazam (CAS No. 881685-58-1)
  2. 3,3′,4,4′ Tetrachloroazobenzene (CAS No. 14047-09-7)

About Prop 65.  Not all 800+ chemicals on the Prop 65 list should be avoided at all costs (and in some cases they might save your life, as with aspirin to thin the blood).  The Prop 65 list seeks to publish the identity of every chemical that can be a danger and to require products containing it or traces of it be clearly labeled as potentially toxic.  Labels are mandatory, although enforcement is spotty.

The idea, it’s said, is to alert consumers of possible dangers and let consumers decide whether to act on that knowledge.

Welcome, New Readers

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Today we start welcoming readers from another blog we run called Laying It Out. We’ve imported the blog posts from the past several years to this site, and readers are able to sort all the old (and new) postings from Laying It Out by Pete Waddell, Judy Warner and myself by clicking on the Laying It Out category.

Why the switch? We’ve realized that many readers were using both blogs because some of the content on the Hot Wires blog overlapped quite a bit with the design and fabrication segment (Duane Benson, I’m looking at you!). Merging all the content into one space should save all of us some time each day.

Thanks for reading!

US Senate EPW approves Safe Chemicals Act

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The Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee has approved the “Safe Chemicals Act,” which was introduced last year. The legislation is intended to protect Americans from dangerous toxic chemicals that are found in everyday consumer products.

The measure is expected to move forward along party lines.  That is to say, it’s “unlikely to advance without bipartisan support” (Tribune).

“This vote is a major milestone in our effort to fix America’s broken system for regulating toxic chemicals,” said Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ). Lautenberg, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health, introduced the “Safe Chemicals Act of 2011” last year in an effort to modernize the “Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976” (TSCA).

The bill aims to provide the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the tools it needs to require health and safety testing of toxic chemicals and places the burden on industry to prove that chemicals are safe.

Under current law, the EPA can call for safety testing only after evidence surfaces demonstrating a chemical is dangerous. As a result, EPA has been able to require testing for just 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals currently registered in the United States, and has been able to ban only five dangerous substances.

Where the chemicals are. Scientists and environmental groups have expressed concern about chemicals that are used in the production of a wide-range of consumer products.  NJToday’s list of such products includes:

  1. Rug cleaners and stain-resistant carpet
  2. Non-stick cookware
  3. Vinyl products
  4. Dishwashing liquids
  5. Fabric softeners
  6. Upholstery
  7. Insulation, and
  8. Hair dyes

The Safe Chemicals Act would:

  1. Require manufacturers to develop and submit safety data for each chemical they produce, while avoiding duplicative or unnecessary testing.
  2. Prioritize chemicals based on risk, so that EPA can focus resources on evaluating those most likely to cause harm while working through the backlog of untested existing chemicals.
  3. Place the burden of proof on chemical manufacturers to demonstrate the safety of their chemicals.
  4. Restrict uses of chemicals that cannot be proven safe.
  5. Establish a public database to catalog the information submitted by chemical manufacturers and the EPA’s safety determinations.
  6. Promote innovation and development of safe chemical alternatives, and bring some new chemicals onto the market using an expedited review process.

Actio’s position on the Safe Chemicals Act is that it would be much easier to establish policies at a federal level than have the tangle of state and sector parameters in place now.

However, cheekily we might point out that Actio software exists to untangle those compliance webs — so maybe as a company we should have mixed feelings towards federal level policy!  (Truly: this one US federal law passing would not eliminate the need to Actio software — the need exists as long as there are international regulations, supply chain transparency needs, and unique declarable substances lists within discrete market sectors.)

The fact is that policy watchers see no real reason to believe the Safe Chemicals Act will gather serious momentum in the near future.  But you never know.  We’ll keep watching.

EPA Penalties for Wrong Chemical Data Reporting

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued complaints seeking civil penalties against three companies for alleged violations of chemical reporting and record-keeping requirements. The requirements, under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), require companies to submit accurate data about the production and use of chemical substances manufactured or imported during a calendar year.

 Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) penalties
These violations in particular involve failure to comply with EPA’s TSCA section 8 Inventory Update Reporting (IUR). The gist of the TSCA section 8 update is related to production volumes of chemicals, adjusted last November 2011. The larger IUR is well-explained here.

Under the TSCA penalty structure as it stands, penalties can be assessed up to $37,500 per day, per violation.

Formerly known simply as the IUR, the rule is now called the “TSCA Chemical Data Reporting Rule.”  Of course, that’s been abbreviated,  now it’s known just as CDR in most circles. As always, have your acronym machete handy when approaching EPA materials. Again, details can be found in section 8 of the larger TSCA.

 CDR reporting deadlines and transgressions 
The reporting deadline for the 2006 IUR rule ended in March of 2007 — EPA’s enforcement efforts have led to 43 civil enforcement actions and approximately $2.3 million dollars in civil penalties against companies that failed to report required chemical data information.

By the way: the reporting deadline for the CDR 2012 submission period is August 13, 2012.

The three most recent cases where EPA is complaining of a trangression are against Chemtura Corporation, Bethlehem Apparatus Company, and Haldor Topsoe, Inc., and resulted in penalties totaling $362,113.

The Chemtura Corporation – $55,901. The company corrected the violations, paid the penalty and a final order was issued by the Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) on June 25, 2012.

Bethlehem Apparatus Company – $103,433. The company corrected the violations and paid the penalty.

Haldor Topsoe, Inc. – $202,779. The company paid on July 2, 2012.

It will be interesting to see if enforcement continues, and whether it trends towards higher fines or not.  Chemical data reporting is poised to become the next great challenge (and, arguably, competitive advantage) for American companies — which is why technology market watchers paid such attention to software for chemical ingredient disclosure earlier this year.

More information about TSCA reporting requirements and penalties is online, at the EPA website.

No Rest for EMS

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Look out Apple — Foxconn is encroaching on your turf.

The company, which already boasts a chain of retail outlets, plans to expand into everything from software apps to a broadband satellite network. Much like Verizon, Comcast and others in the US, the EMS firm is working with local municipalities to build out the network.

Moreover, it has big plans to develop apps for smartphones, tablets and TV.

EMS companies don’t stand still. They can’t make money making solder joints. OEMs that want to protect their future should reconsider the extent to which they should be enabling  their suppliers.

Solder/Flux Density

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Folks,

It is hard to believe that I have been blogging for over 7 years now. In all this time it has surprised me how much interest there has been in the solder density calculator that I developed. At the suggestion of Tim Jensen, I have added a feature that can calculate the volume of solder paste and flux if given their masses or vice versus. The densities of the solder paste alloy and flux are also needed.  Most fluxes have a density of about 1 g/cm3. If you are interested in this updated software tool, download it here.*

Knowing the volume of the solder and flux in a solder paste is critical if you are using the pin-in-paste process, with or without solder preforms. I have also developed a software package called StencilCoach that can calculate stencil parameters and the special parameters needed for the pin-in-paste process. I will also send this free software tool to those that are interested.

The image shows the schematic for the solder volume calculations for the pin-in-paste process. The equations were developed by Creyr Innovation’s Jim McLenaghan.

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

*Note that the software is free, but you will need to provide a working email address.

Another Tidal Wave Hits Japan

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Old friend Dominque Numakura comes back from the annual JPCA Show with a stunning announcement: Japan’s PCB industry seems to be on life support.

From a series of dull presentations to the outsourcing of manufacturing to a general lack of optimism, the mood is dour, Numakura says. More ominous, some veterans are comparing the trend to the decimation of the US PCB industry in late 2001.

As late as 2000, the US and Japan were neck-and-neck in annual PCB sales, with the US dominating the large board space and Japan leading in HDI. Despite the problems experienced in the US, Japan continued to be the technology leader in PCBs, leading some to surmise that its vast investment and wise decisions on which technologies to focus on made Japan impervious to the cost pressures that sunk the North American industry. Numakura’s essay suggest that’s not the case, leaving one to wonder what this means for the circuit board industry for the coming decade.

Cool Customer Application

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It’s not all that often that we get to see or can talk about just what is done with the boards we build at Screaming Circuits. In most cases, it’s a proprietary product or some government thing. But, recently we built some boards for NTH SYNTH. They have a successful Kickstarter project to produce a music synthesizer. They describe it as: “It is fun to use, sonically-rich, and hackable by design.” Go check it out.

Nthsynth-small-007

(This image is from their website.) I wanted to take some photos for them of their PCBs being assembled on our SMT machines, but the boards ended up being built on one of our night shifts and I missed the chance.

Duane Benson
They’re the people out there turnin’ music into gold
But hopefully makin’ more than Jim Bass’ two-fifty for an hour

http://blog.screamingcircuits.com/