Click on the advert above to visit the company web site

Product category: PCB Assembly Equipment and Tools
News Release from: Oki Electric
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 14 March 2005

Lead-free soldering programme extends
into China

Request your FREE weekly copy of the Electronicstalk email newsletter. News about PCB Assembly Equipment and Tools and more every issue. Click here for details.

Oki Electric has extended its lead-free soldering qualification recognition programme to Oki Electric Industry (Shenzhen), its ATM and printer production plant in China.

Oki Electric has extended its lead-free soldering qualification recognition programme to Oki Electric Industry (Shenzhen), its ATM and printer production plant in China This programme qualifies lead-free soldering technicians who are required to have higher degree of professional skills than conventional lead soldering

OSZ became Oki's first overseas plant to adopt this internal programme, after Oki's introduction in Japan in December 2003.

"We are planning to introduce this recognition programme to other overseas subsidiaries and educate specialists with professional skills required for lead-free products", said Harushige Sugimoto, Chairman and President of Manufacturing Service Company at Oki Electric.

"By obtaining such skills we believe we can enhance the ability to provide environmental-friendly products and achieve early realisation of lead-free products for the overseas market".

For electronic equipment, lead is used in solders when mounting components on a circuit board.

Because lead is one of the six chemical substances included in the EU RoHS Directive, it is necessary to achieve lead-free soldering.

Lead-free soldering has a high melting point, which demands technicians to work with high temperature in a short period of time, and because it works with high temperature, it can destroy components that are vulnerable to heat resulting to be a defective soldering.

Thus, lead-free soldering technicians are required to have higher technical skills than conventional lead soldering.

Oki introduced this programme to OSZ because in order to respond to lead-free soldering, OSZ had various processes to understand, such as working manually with components that are vulnerable to heat and that need repair or failure analysis.

An instructor was dispatched from Oki Electric to OSZ in December 2004 to educate seven employees at OSZ and conducted the first qualification test, in which all of them succeeded in acquiring the qualification and received the recognition award in March 2005.

Technicians will be evaluated on 100 items in total and receive the qualification in five stages based on their total score.

OSZ plans to educate the seven employees to instructor level.

Oki Electric: contact details and other news
Email this article to a colleague
Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
Electronicstalk Home Page

Search the Pro-Talk network of sites