April 2022 Issue of PCB007 Magazine Available Now

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For the past few years, industry analysts have been talking about the need for fabricators to “upskill” their employees to be ready for the technologies of tomorrow. The Smart factory and Industry 4.0—not to mention the ramping-up of AI—are just a few reasons that your staff members really need to be continuing their education throughout their careers.

But upskilling is more than a fancy-sounding idea. In today’s labor market, fabrication management may not have any other alternatives than to make the best of the employees they have right now. That, and pray that none of the subject matter experts retire in the meantime.

It's certainly a good time to be adding tools to your toolbox of skills. As the Smart factory and Industry 4.0 lead the drive to replace more humans with technology, the need for humans who are trained to manage AI-optimized systems will increase exponentially. A lot of the software used to fabricate and assemble PCBs contains AI or machine learning—it just operates in the background, learning as it works.

But what's the best way to upskill your employees? Several managers we spoke with said that they don’t have time to take staff off the shop floor for training sessions. Your best bet is to incentivize employees to continue their education and training on their own time, but how do you make that happen?

This is advice you’ll turn to again and again.

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Read Andy Shaughnessy's introductory column about this magazine:The Shaughnessy Report: Upskilling Staff Is Your Best Option.

02/21/2017 | Patty Goldman, I-Connect007

As an excellent introduction to this issue, IPC’s John Mitchell gives us a wonderful overview of what emerging technology is and what we need to do to keep up. One thing he emphasizes is a trained and competitive workforce. Indeed, in our recent hiring survey we learned that an overwhelming percentage of you are concerned about a shortage of skilled and qualified people. John’s column is a great call to action.

08/10/2015 | Patty Goldman, I-Connect007

The August issue of The PCB Magazine is focused on the war on process failure. This subject of process failure turns out to be quite broad and affects essentially everyone in our industry, from the raw material suppliers to the circuit designer to the PCB processor to the assembly folks and on to the OEM. We all have a hand in it, both causing and solving problems and benefiting from solutions. You will find several appropos and useful articles in this issue.