Firms urged to improve quality control
Jack Crawford, director at global trade association IPC, teaches a class of engineers on global standards in assembly technology at the association’s Korean education center in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday. / Courtesy of Isaac Electronics
By Cho Mu-hyun
A board member of IPC, a global trade association, said Korean industries must upgrade their quality management level on assembly lines to stay competitive in the world.
“Korean firms must adopt global standards to have the ability to be more globally competitive,” Jack Crawford, director of certification and assembly technology at IPC, said in an interview with The Korea Times. “Slowly, almost too slowly, Korean manufacturers come into international developments.”
“I think the IPC offers the opportunity for manufacturers in this region (Asia Pacific) to rapidly advance the industry,” he added.
Korea’s economy throughout its history has been manufacturing and engineering, led by conglomerates such as Hyundai and Samsung. However, as these companies have mostly been “fast-followers,” they have adopted manufacturing processes quickly.
There is a serious lack of standards adopted in the process, which is detrimental for communications with global clients. The most serious problem is the absence of quality control.
“Fast-follower only works as long as somebody else makes something to follow,” said the director. He said more involvement of Korea in changes in the world is needed for the country to stay ahead.
Other countries in Asia, such as Taiwan, China and Japan with a similar economical model as Korea’s, have been quick to realize the importance of being involved in global developments, said the director.
“IPC training programs have shown 8 to 15 percent every year growth from our foundation despite the recent global recession. In the last two years, when some industries were shutting off and there were layoffs, our training centers, like our Korean education center is growing bigger.
“The reason is because companies have to do more with less. They have a smaller workforce, and that workforce has to be more capable,” he said.
IPC trains certified trainers (called first-tier program), who in turn educate others (second-tier program) to widely disseminate the highly-sought after education at a reasonable price. It has 27,000 trainers overall. In Korea there are currently 217, with 55 of them being local citizens here.
However, Korean manufacturers have now at least understood the need to make the workforce more aggressively adopt and be trained by programs such as those which the IPC offers. Hyundai, Samsung and LG are looking to improve quality management by adopting standards. Two years of hard work by the Korean education center is finally paying off. Two of 17 international standards have been translated into the local language with more on the way.
“Samsung and domestic companies have one of the best after-sales policies in the world. But if you look at it closely, it means that there was a lack of quality,” said Yun Hak-hyun, the head of IPC’s Korean center, also present at the interview.
Its office here is currently putting in efforts to provide standard education to small and mid-sized firms at a reasonable price. “Before the IPC, small companies couldn’t afford to get such an expensive education concerning quality control,” said Yun. He added that it was important for Korean equipment manufacturers to join the association to gain access to information available on the latest technology.
Crawford said more participation by local firms here will ultimately boost their brand power thanks to better quality control in their products.
The global association, which boasts over 3,800 members including industry giants such as Apple and Google, sets and educates about standards on processes in manufacturing. It has been operating since 1957 and is a member of the International Electrotechnical Commission, the standard setter covering all electronics technology.
“The start for IPC was instigated by six printed circuit board companies having problems with their customers because there were no standards,” said the director.
IPC use to stand for Interconnected Printed Circuit, but the name was dropped because it has expanded to include education and setting standards on design and assembly line: in a word, the whole manufacturing process.
“Our tag line is connecting the electronics industry: we stand for strengthening and advancing electronics manufacturing globally,” said Crawford.