Building Diagnostic Technical Repair Capability

by Bryant Underwood, Foxconn

Reverse Logistics Magazine, May/June 2007

When developing RL solutions, the portion of the work that focuses on inventory control and logistics or that provide screening and testing, tend to be processes that are relatively easy to implement, well developed and consistent. For most clients, the scope of their needs extends far beyond these basic services. If you are an RL service provider, at some point in the process, solid depot repair capability will need to be developed internally or found through partnerships.

When I speak with other RL Operations Managers, the number one topic by far is how to setup and configure the technical side of the RL operation that will be performing the component level repair. For many, this becomes so difficult a proposition that in an effort to overcompensate for technical gaps, so much staff and equipment gets loaded into the planning that pricing exceeds market acceptable ranges or the RL vendors just reduce their scope to Level 1 and 2 types of repairs and refurbishment. Let me share some thoughts on how to bring structure and order to solutioning highly technical repair operations and greatly improve the value add you can provide.

In order to bring clarity and structure to addressing depot repair, we need to do some simplifying of the chaos and complexity that exists. Some points to keep in mind as we build our outline are:

• There are only three tasks that can be performed to repair an electronic device.
  • Replace a part
  • Soft fix (SW upgrade, flash, tuning, etc…)
  • Reflow (repair of poor soldering--this is a more significant issue with lead free builds)
• The repair service resources must reflect the needs of the product. For example, if you are doing module level repair for PCs, then an “A+” tech will be fine. If you need to provide component level repair of switch mode power supplies in servers, then an “A+” level technician will be of almost no use and greatly lacking in the capabilities needed.
• Training is key to success. Many try to overlook the training aspect as just more cost. It is not. Good training does many things and they are all beneficial.
  • Think of training as software for your most expensive piece of test equipment. Consider this--the typical lease cost for a major piece of test equipment from R&S or Agilent may range from $1500-2000 per month. Would you lease test equipment without the SW to operate it? No, it would be a wasted investment. Highly competent technicians will cost 2.5X that amount and training is the software they need to perform consistent, high quality work.
  • For most staff pay is only a short term motivator; for technicians, this is especially true. These tend to be people who enjoy challenges and problem solving. Good training will better promote positive attitudes and better performance for these staff. This higher job satisfaction will reduce ‘HR issues’ and the costs from churn through staff that are dissatisfied with the work environment.
  • When an employee is first hired there is a very narrow window of time to instill into that person your company’s beliefs and values. This is critical if the company is to be a market leader. The reason is this--work gets performed either from ‘effort’ or from ‘systems and culture.’ Most novice managers attempt to drive all solutions through effort--this is not a sustaining solution. You can tell that ‘effort’ is the key strategy at a company when performance seems to go OK, that is until someone goes on vacation or gets ill. Etc... Then it all just falls apart in a storm of corrective action plans. A much more successful way to achieve good operational outcomes is to leverage systems and culture. The systems part we will save for another time--but culture is based on the beliefs and values the employee associates with the company. These associations drive a sustaining performance driven culture and good training is how this is achieved.

With these points in mind, let’s talk about how to structure the toughest part of RL supply chain--Component Level Repair (AKA Level 3 or Level 4 Repair). If you are starting up a Component Level Repair Service from scratch then you need good engineering management resources to help in the screening process to find the right technical staff. If you are not a strong technical manager, do not try to do this yourself. Get someone with a high degree of technical knowledge and experience in this industry. What level of technical knowledge am I speaking to? A typical question that I might ask of a technician candidate during an interview for hire as a Level 3 technician might be, “ why would a totem pole drive configuration be used to control a MOSFET in a switch mode power supply and how would you diagnose a failure in that drive circuit?” If that sentence makes sense to you, your good to go for technician screening interviews.

Now that you know how to find the right technicians, what should the line configuration and mix look like? For most products, there are three categories of staff skills needed for the component level repair portion of an RL Operation:

• Rework. Percent needed in typical component level repair line-25%. These are staff with a high degree of fine pitch and BGA solder training. You will want them to be IPC 7711/7721 certified. You can hire staff with these skills or add them with your training suite. The reason you want certified rework staff is to minimize board damage. The number 1 reason that product is returned as un-repairable, is damage to the board caused by the rework staff at the repair operation. Most clients will want to be compensated for the damage created. The value of competent, certified staff is more than worth the cost of the skills.
• Diagnostic or Level 3 Technicians. Percent needed in typical component level repair line-20%. These are your real ‘brain trust’ for repair. They have been well-trained and most likely helped develop much of your product specific training for the rest of the operation. They will discover the root cause of your failure modalities and keep your engineering team advised of trends to update and improve your process. In my opinion, the best level of general certification for this level of technician can be obtained from ISCET (International Society of Certified Electronics Technicians). All ISCET certified technicians must pass a rigorous associate level test and then pass follow on tests that cover specific product technologies. These include communications, computing, TV/Displays, Appliance, Industrial Controls, etc… The associate level test is tough enough that most staff employed as Level 3 diagnostic technicians would not be able to pass it.
• Rote Repair of Level 2 Technicians. Percent needed in typical component level repair line-55%. These are the guys that are the real backbone of the operation. Most have worked their way up at the company or on the product being repaired and typically have little training and no certifications. They will need to have high rates of production and should be managed to only have a limited amount of time to accomplish the repair before moving the product to the Diagnostic Technician.

The reason for this structure is based on the assumption that most products are well designed. This level of solid engineering we see in the marketplace on electronic products tends to produce failures modes that are predictable with a trend that can be documented. The trends even have a high degree of consistency across product lines. The typical Pareto of failures for 5000 units to benchmark a startup operation against can be seen in the following chart.

What you will notice from the chart is how many of the failures really do not require a highly skilled diagnostic technician. This is why the mix of staff with these skills is targeted to just ~20% in the Level 3 production line. Too many of these staff adds unnecessary cost and since they have high skills you need to keep them tasked and busy. Some of the most poisonous work environments I have ever seen are caused by having high skills technical staff with too little work to perform. The Diagnostic Technicians are an absolute requirement, just be sure to get the highest skills and watch your staffing mix to ensure you can keep them busy.

Once you have a reasonably well functioning diagnostic repair operation in place, then you need to be looking at the data. The failure modalities, parts usage, labor minutes per unit; these are all critical metrics that allow you to keep the process in control. Various drivers of the failures WILL CHANGE over time and you must be looking at the data. This is the only way to keep training up to date and keep quality and costs under control. In addition, distilling data into information will ensure you become a critical partner for your client. By forwarding as much of this information as possible upstream, your client will have much better tools for their own business control. Notice, I said information not data. Clients have little need for data. Data just means more work needs to be done--information on the other hand has immediate value and demonstrates a thoughtful purpose and message. This will be treated like gold by your clients. I recall from the last RLTS Conference in Las Vegas, Gailen Vick asked the question of the audience at the keynote address, ‘who here is happy with their IT system?’ Only one person raised their hand. This just further emphasizes the need to collect good data and USE IT to provide closed loop control of the process and to drive actionable information back into your client’s hands.

Reverse Logistics Magazine, May/June 2007