RoHS and Lead-Free Pilgrimage

By Chris Smith

The Challenge

The transition to RoHS mandates will create unique supply chain, process and validation challenges that add tremendous risk to our customers’ business. In order to better support our customers we began our RoHS pilgrimage over three years ago. Vanguard EMS currently provides excellent support services for customers as they transition into compliance with environmental regulations such as WEEE and RoHS. Our goals remain the following:

• To provide our customers support in evaluating their BOMs for RoHS compliance.
• To provide our customers compliant/controlled processes for placing and re-working product in a RoHS environment.
• To ensure that the material we add at Vanguard in addition to customer BOMs is RoHS compliant by providing materials declarations.
• Support our customers’ prototyping needs by providing a streamlined prototype service to ease their RoHS transition.
• Provide design input to support the most efficient manufacturing and test processes for their products.
• Provide a training and education program for customers as well as Vanguard team members.

The Approach

Vanguard EMS made the decision to take a leadership position and began to work with our supply chain and other third parties to provide our customers with a comprehensive BOM health service for determining risk as it relates to their Bills of Materials. We currently provide our customers a green, yellow and red status to help them focus on the components that are at the highest risk for non-compliance.

On the process side we worked with two Fortune 100 customers starting in 2002 to perform process R&D and establish complete lead-free solder process capability. Through designed experiments and collaboration with equipment providers and material suppliers, Vanguard's technical team identified which equipment and materials would provide routine, controllable processes and provide high-quality results.

Vanguard invested where necessary in new equipment, including a dedicated lead-free wave and new high temperature-capable rework equipment. Novel and proprietary process technology was also developed to ensure repeatable SMT processing. Process validation was performed on multiple package types and for multiple circuit board finishes.

Vanguard’s Materials team in conjunction with Manufacturing Engineering has thoroughly reviewed all materials supporting the manufacturing process for RoHS compliance. Based on our compliance we are currently prepared to provide our customers Materials Declarations documenting the material we add to their product (outside of their Bill of Material) in our manufacturing processes is RoHS compliant. Materials Declarations will be required for compliance documentation for the European Union.

For many of our customers, prototyping products in a lead-free manufacturing process is a critical component of their transition. Prototyping gives them the ability to determine the effects of higher heat on their products as well as the ability to revalidate their design based on materials and process changes required by RoHS mandates. We have separated our prototype team from our manufacturing team to give our customers quick-turn, turnkey prototyping services. This new team is called Vanguard Velocity and is supported by dedicated staff and equipment. The group is led by a Electrical Engineer and Six Sigma Black Belt with many years of EMS experience. The team will also offer reports suggesting layout changes to increase manufacturing and test efficiencies.

Through Vanguard’s established internal training team we provide employees as well as customers several courses on RoHS compliance. Vanguard’s internal training team is led by a business trainer who came to Vanguard from Portland Community College. Three of the most important courses we provide to customers include RoHS and WEEE overviews, Vanguard’s pilgrimage (lessons learned), and discussions regarding surface finish, solder pastes, unique processes, quality and inspection. As a learning-based organization we will continue to add and update courses as required.

The Result

In August 2004, Vanguard EMS announced full RoHS capability. Vanguard’s RoHS team includes our Director of Materials, Director of Sales, Director of Program Management and our Process Engineering Manager, as well as our CEO and VP of Operations. This team meets bi-weekly to proactively support our customers in their transition. Since our announcement we have become an integral part of our customers’ transition plans for RoHS compliance, including supply chain conversion, materials declarations, prototyping and the shipment of over 15,000 lead free and combination lead free and leaded assemblies.