Two-year process prepares for RoHS

Electronics manufacturing services provider TTems reports on progress towards RoHS-compliant manufacturing.

TTems has been working actively over the past 24 months towards RoHS-compliant manufacturing.

The company's first steps were to establish four in-house project teams, supervised by an overall Project Manager and Operations Director, in its Engineering, Quality, Materials and Commercial departments.

The engineering and quality teams - tasked with ensuring TTems' consumable materials and processes are capable and reliable - are also responsible for providing technical assistance to the customer base as required.

The materials team constantly monitors material availability to ensure continual supply and minimise material obsolescence.

And finally, the commercial team leads dialogue with customers to discuss implications of the transition and ensure minimal disruption to the schedules.

Supporting this in-house organisational activity, a TT electronics group-wide project team was also created across a number of subsidiary companies to share ideas, experiences and initiatives, and to create standardisation where possible.

The team meets formally on a quarterly basis and is attended by each of the subsidiary Project Managers and Operations Directors, and is chaired by the subsidiaries Divisional CEO.

Extensive research has been undertaken by TTems' in-house teams to develop its manufacturing processes.

This has included trials with eight alternative solder pastes, five PCB finishes (gold, silver, OSP, tin and lead-free HASL), a VOC free wave solder flux and no clean solder wire - while monitoring the potential impact on existing AOI programmes.

All have been carried out under strict controls using TTems' specifically designed RoHS trial card, and then benchmarked against a HASL-finished card with lead-based solder and componentry.

All trials have undergone critical examination at various external laboratories, including Tin Technology (formally the International Tin Research Institute).

Based on these reports and other research data, TTems has identified SAC alloy as the most appropriate for its business and its customers' products.

It has also provisionally identified a preferred source of supply.

Final approval, however, will be dependent on further flow solder flux trials.

The company's preferred PCB finish is nickel gold as this offers a reliable, well proven finish, most suited to contract electronic manufacturing.

On the materials side, an area more difficult to manage due to differing levels of customer awareness and commitment to RoHS compliance, TTems has undertaken a cleansing exercise on all existing and potential customers' bills of materials.

The exercise requires that each component on customer boards is queried with suppliers to check RoHS compliance.

As a contract electronics manufacturer, TTems does not have design authority, and so all component conversion requires authorisation from the customer.

In some instances, this generates design changes.

At present, obtaining sufficient quantities of lead-free components for full volume manufacture remains difficult, and so the transition to lead-free is slow.

Because of TTems' varied customer base and the current exemptions to the legislation, TTems will continue to run both leaded and lead-free processes.

In addition to the company's trials and materials sourcing, modifications have been made to existing machinery to overcome problems associated with lead-free processes, and further investment is ongoing into new machinery - including the recent purchase of a fully RoHS compliant flow solder machine and a Soltec forced air convection oven .

As a result, TTems' entire manufacturing process is fully capable of producing RoHS compliant products.

In the run-up to RoHS compliance, TTems has already gained the BSI kitemark against the IPC's (Institute of Interconnecting and Packaging Electronic Circuits) standard for lead-free assemblt, IPC-A-610 D, and is one of the first companies in the UK to do so.

This objective was successfully achieved in April 2005 and provides customers with the assurance of an independent third party audit against the company's processes and product quality.

The company has also continued to develop its in-house environmental policy and transferred successfully to the 2004 upgrade of ISO14001 certification - the only environmental standard against which it is currently possible to be certified by an external certification authority.

TTems' commitment to the environment has seen the company embrace initiatives of ISO14001 legislation such as recycling, energy reduction, more efficient use of raw materials, management of environmental risk, and increasing awareness company-wide of environmental best practice.

This makes good business sense for an environmentally-conscious company, and is fast becoming a prerequisite to compete in the global market place.

Keith Young, Managing Director, TTems, comments: "RoHS is a fundamental piece of legislation which effectively manages the impact of manufacturing processes, and TTems is working very hard in supporting its customers towards achieving compliance".

"Implementing lead-free initiatives will make a huge difference to the environment and also brings with it increased efficiencies with which to run the business".

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