The electronics manufacturing processes department

Manufacturing a product, and in particular an electronic product, means implementing different manufacturing processes: reflow, wave soldering, cutting, assembly, bonding, etc.

These different processes involve determining and guaranteeing the stability of various key characteristics.

A company’s ability to control these parameters has a major impact on achieving its Quality/Cost/Delivery/Reliability objectives, especially when the products manufactured are highly technical.

This is why TRONICO has a team of experts whose main mission is to guarantee process control.

Process control is a key requirement of our customers and of various certifications/accreditations that are important to TRONICO.

The jobs in the process department involve meeting very specific objectives, such as :

Qualifying, controlling, monitoring and checking manufacturing processes:

Qualify: identify the process parameters influencing the manufacturing equipment, determine their limits and the risks of drift in order to secure and monitor the equipment effectively. A qualification plan is drawn up accordingly. Some “special” processes require qualification through specific destructive tests.

Control: knowing all the possible machine parameters, their impact, the most influential ones, etc. The experts know the machines and associated processes inside out.

Monitor and control: the experts regularly monitor the resources for which they are responsible. They use a Statistical Process Control (SPC) method to identify deviations, anticipate them and take action to return to normal.

Ensuring compliance with customer/standard requirements and monitoring changes in these requirements:

Ensuring compliance: various technical customer or standard requirements must be met to guarantee product conformity. Process experts ensure compliance in a number of ways:

• By monitoring and controlling production resources, determining the parameters to be controlled, etc.
• By training production operators.
• By formalising requirements in operating procedures and instructions.
• Validating manufacturing files and instruction sheets.

Participating in product design and industrialisation (Tronico Engineering Department or customer)

Design: when designing a product, it is essential to take into account the manufacturing methods that will be used if we want to ensure its manufacturability. Process experts work regularly with designers to advise them on the most appropriate processes and designs, particularly through DFMs.

Industrialisation: this activity involves determining machine parameters, producing manufacturing instructions, profiles, tooling, etc. All these actions require perfect knowledge of the resources and technical requirements of the customer/norms. That’s why the process experts and the industrialisation team work closely together.

Assisting the workshop and the quality department to solve manufacturing problems

Assisting the workshop: when the workshop encounters technical difficulties with an existing product or when a new product is introduced, the process experts help them to analyse the problem and adjust the parameters and resources to obtain the expected result.

Assisting the quality department: analysing the causes of a defect often requires in-depth technical analysis as well as knowledge of the influencing process parameters. The knowledge of process experts is essential in this work, carried out in collaboration with Quality to target the right causes and take the necessary action.

Keeping a technology watch, introducing new processes

Technology watch: they monitor developments in processes and machines as well as developments in our customers’ and prospective customers’ products in order to be able to propose research projects and investments. These enable TRONICO to improve the quality of its products and the reliability of its manufacturing processes, as well as to meet the needs of customers at the cutting edge of electronics.

Introduction of new processes: when a new process needs to be implemented, they take the necessary steps to introduce it into the workshops: analysis, understanding, fine-tuning and training. If this requires the purchase of a machine, they manage the project: benchmarking, selection, installation in the workshop, start-up, qualification and implementation of the MSP.