To say August 13th was a memorable day for the Creation Technologies Dallas Business Unit would be a huge understatement.

It was a complete trifecta!

1. Had a chance to meet our local Congressman, Sam Johnson, and his staff
2. Visit from John Hasselmann, VP Government Relations for IPC who was visiting from Washington, DC
3. Onsite filming for a segment featuring Creation on Fox Business Channel

A Visit from Congressman Sam Johnson and IPC

We were delighted to host Congressman Johnson and IPC.

Our Dallas leadership team enjoyed some great discussion with the Congressman about economic development in Texas, and Creation’s plans for growth in the region of Collin County/Plano. Texas has long been a center for technology-based innovation, and recent investment in accelerators and incubators around the state suggests this isn’t going to change anytime soon.

We also discussed the increasingly complex outsourcing needs of our OEM customers. Many of Creation’s customers are multinational organizations, and so our global business units in Mexico and China continue to play a critical role in helping our customers identify the right regional strategy.

Afterward, the Congressman toured our production facility and met the 150 people that we’re proud to have work here at Creation in Texas. He was extremely personable and engaging and genuinely interested in what we do.

John Hasselmann of IPC also joined in the discussion with the Congressman, and informed us of the many ways that IPC is helping our industry from a government relations perspective – the insight and support that IPC offers is tremendous.

Creation Makes Our TV Debut

Last week, Creation made our television debut as part of the Fox Business segment, Manufacturing Marvels.

To make this possible, not only did we host the Congressman and IPC on the 13th, we had a lot of fun as the film crew followed us around throughout the day. They captured footage of our manufacturing facility, as well as some interesting moments in our business meetings. They even got out a drone for the aerial footage!

I watched the segment the night it aired, and I think it turned out really well. Manufacturing, after all, is a key part of Creation’s end-to-end solution.

Everything was shot in high-definition and highlighted Creation from a global perspective while illustrating the specific capabilities and location of Creation Technologies Texas – it was very exciting to see our people and facility on film.

Our People, Our Company, Our Industry

August 13th was a great, high-energy day and our team had a lot of fun.

It isn’t every day that we get to be on camera for a national broadcast, enjoy an audience with the Congressman and visit with an IPC executive!

All fun aside, it is our sincere hope that the day was successful at bringing value and recognition to our people, our company and our industry. Hopefully, it not only conveyed some of our strengths and capabilities, but the passion we all bring to the workplace each and every day!

Read more about our big day in the news releases:

Congressman Sam Johnson Visits Leading Texas Electronics Company Creation Technologies
Award-Winning EMS Provider, Creation Technologies, Appears on Fox Business News Network

Miniaturization Presents Unique Challenges

Over the course of my career, I’ve seen firsthand the impact that organizations like SMTA and IPC can have on the electronics industry. At Creation Technologies, we’re proud to be a long-standing member of SMTA and appreciate the work that it has done to establish standards, strengthen skills and further the success of its members.

Through these prestigious associations, Creation plays an active role in accelerating the growth of the global electronics industry for both newcomers and long-time industry leaders alike.

A Decade of Dedication

Over the last 10 years, the Process Engineering team at Creation – Mississauga has been a regular participant and contributor to SMTA’s International Conference on Soldering and Reliability (ICSR) in Toronto.

I’ve welcomed the opportunity to attend as part of this team, engaging in good discussion and sharing Creation’s knowledge in surface mount assembly and related processes.

Smaller Components, Bigger Cleaning Challenge

The continued miniaturization of electronic components presents a unique challenge to product reliability. One of these challenges is in processing and cleaning during assembly.

Today’s ever-smaller components mean smaller clearances. This increases the probability of flux residue or surface contamination during processing, which in turn leads to reliability risks that can only be mitigated through ensuring total flux removal.

If flux residue is left on the board, it can reduce yields, and even cause significant field failures.

The paper discusses multiple cleaning methods to remove flux.

Clean-Cut Methods

Creation takes pride in ensuring the reliability of the products we build for our customers, and have established methods that ensure this total flux removal.

To learn more about how Creation accomplishes this, our technical paper, written by Flavius Dehel and myself, can be downloaded from the SMTA website. It describes Creation’s systematic development of methods that aid us in total removal of flux residue:

Free Download for SMTA Members:
Technical Paper | Verification of Cleaning Under Leadless Components.

This download is free for SMTA members and is available to non-members for a nominal fee.

We hope that this paper provides you with some more insight into the impact that the cleaning process can have on product quality. Please let us know if we can answer any questions by sending us an email.

Connected Medical Devices and IoT

The billion-device, billion-dollar Internet of Things (IoT) holds the potential to dramatically transform healthcare.

Wirelessly connected medical devices increase patient mobility while giving healthcare professionals real-time access to patient data, throughout the hospital, and at the point of care.

Devices that were previously tied to a computer can now communicate wirelessly with one another using Bluetooth, ZigBee or over a hospital’s existing Wi-Fi network.

Today, for instance, an EMG machine used to detect neuromuscular abnormalities can wirelessly transmit critical-care data to other local devices or maintenance data back to the OEM.

This stream of information provides an optimal experience for users, while enabling medical device companies to improve product functionality.

Connected Medical Devices: Risk and Reward

Connected medical devices hold tremendous promise for medical device manufacturers. According to the Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA), network-enabled medical devices represent a potential revenue opportunity of $6.6 billion.

Medical OEMs, however, face particular technical challenges when it comes to the IoT and connected medical devices.

It’s important to note that not all devices need to connect to the Internet; they may simply need to connect to a few other local devices. Different schemes also have varying password and encryption methods.

Improving the patient experience with wireless medical diagnostics

Connectivity Know-How

Through stringent device testing, design validation, and the verification methods necessary to meet regulatory requirements, EMS providers with wireless communications expertise can help medical OEMs overcome the unique challenges of wireless-connectivity integration.

With Creation’s long history of providing innovative design, manufacturing and test solutions for complex Communications products, over the last few years it’s been a rewarding experience for us to leverage this knowledge to help our Medical customers produce new devices quickly and reliably.

Safely and securely reducing time-to-market while reducing risk never felt healthier.

If you’d like more information about how we can help you with product development or manufacturing improvements for connected medical devices and M2M, please visit our website or let me know!

No matter what process we follow or how well defined the specifications are, projects never proceed as smoothly as we would like.

This was the theme of our workshop a few weeks ago, when Creation Design Services had the pleasure of presenting ‘DFX and You: Making the Transition from Design to Manufacturing’ along with Nate Bullerman, Engineering Leader in Creation’s Minnesota manufacturing facility.

We partnered with LifeScience Alley as part of the educational sessions they provide to Minnesota’s healthcare and life sciences community, and spent the morning with a great group of design engineers.

Watch Nate discuss how tombstoning can be avoided through DFM in the video below.

There’s Only One Guarantee in New Product Development

The discussion went something like this… Whether:

The only guarantee in new product development is:

The product you release will be very different than the one you started with.

The recipe for success in product development is in having the skills to manage change and identify risk, while keeping within cost and time constraints.

Do you have the skills to manage change and identify risk, while keeping within cost and budget?

The Big Picture

The demands of product development can be overwhelming for the design engineer.

In fact, so much pressure is often placed on getting a prototype fully functional, often within superhuman time constraints, that little thought is given to the long-term production of the product.

Engineers are entrepreneurs at heart, and so a typical design approach is to purchase all the parts to build the prototype, put it together somehow, and “make it work”.

This doesn’t always lend itself to the Design for Excellence, or DFX, that is necessary to produce a commercially viable product.

It’s easy to wonder, “Why would I specify six alternative components when I don’t know if the prototype will even work?”

Or, “Why should I add all the other details when the product specifications are just going to change again?”
 

Secrets of the Best Designers

The best designers know how to balance the priorities of the complete project.

Part of this balancing act is framing the overall plan for procurement, production and test. Successful designers know that overlooking these critical functions can result in significant delays and/or costs.

If you want to follow best practices, it is important to identify any barriers early, (before those prototypes), to allow for recovery and a change of direction. This is true whether the product is expected to utilize all standard parts and processes or has some customization.

At our LifeScience Alley workshop, we discussed many aspects of DFX, and created a handy DFM reference for engineers as they think about best designs for product manufacturing. Click here to download a copy: The Successful Engineer’s Guide to DFM

The best designers know that the way forward is through collaboration – to involve team members from purchasing, manufacturing and test to assist in the product review.

As Woodrow Wilson once said, “I use not only all the brains I have, but all those I can borrow.”

What are some of the ways you’ve found to balance competing priorities in the design process?

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Tips for design engineers to make a successful transition from design to manufacturing

You wake up clammy, in a cold sweat.

Your heart is racing over 120BPM and you feel anxiety like you have never felt before.

It’s because of your dream.

This dream wasn’t the usual, where your teeth fell out, or your teenage self showed up at the wrong building for a final exam. No, this was much worse.

This time, you had a dream about your project. Your newly designed, much anticipated product that will change everything for your company.

In your dream, you were in a room with a big clock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. The hands were moving fast.

Every minute, a sales guy would come in and ask if you were done yet.

Each time you’d answer, “Not quite”.

Then a marketing person would arrive and ask you to make just a “little” change.

Every time you glanced at the clock, the hands were moving even faster.

Sales guy. Marketing.

Tick-tock.

Finally, at your wit’s end, you completed adding every ‘little’ change and tore out of the room. “I’ve done it! Here it is!”

You looked around. Your boss and the large team of people wearing clean, white suits looked back at you. “But how will we make it?” they asked, over and over in a slow, rhythmic chant.

That’s when you woke up.

It is now time to change the drenched sheets and sign up for ‘DFX and You: Making the Transition from Design to Manufacturing’.

Making the Transition from Design to Manufacturing

For even the most experienced designers, Product Development can be a real challenge.

Making sense of product requirements, satisfying all major stakeholders, and ensuring that the product is well-designed for commercial success are all critical processes.

As experienced designers and manufacturers, we can help.

Partnering with LifeScience Alley for a December 10th ‘DFX’ Workshop

On December 10th, Creation is partnering with LifeScience Alleyto host a workshop that will offer design engineers some key tips to ensure successful product development.

Sign up today for “DFX and You: Making the Transition from Design to Manufacturing”, at Hamline University Minneapolis.

Nate Bullerman, Engineering Leader in our St Peter, Minnesota business unit, and I will outline some of the standard design practices you should embrace to ensure a smooth transition to manufacturing – the first time, and every time.

We’ll also arm you with information that you can provide to your sales and marketing teams to optimize the process and ease your mind.

And did we mention that we’ll be giving attendees a pretty cool handout, ‘The Successful Engineer’s Guide to DFM Success’?

Hope to see you there!

Of course, if you’re interested but can’t make it, just let me know and I’d be more than happy to walk you through some of the material.

Because of factors like ever-increasing supply chain complexity and rapid technological advancement, I think it’s quite clear that today’s OEMs who are outsourcing their electronics manufacturing and product development need a partner with:

But over the course of my 30 years in the electronics industry, I’ve come to realize that there are other key factors in OEM-EMS relationships…if they’re going to have staying power.

Here are 3 of them.

3 Key Factors in OEM-EMS Relationships

How do you identify the right balance between mindshare and risk in a business relationship?

Why Risk and Mindshare?

In any important relationship, business or personal, would you rather be an afterthought or a focal point?

Personally, I’d rather know that my partner thinks and cares about me and my future.

I’d like to know that I’m a priority, and that my risk of getting hurt from carelessness or lack of consideration is at a minimum.

And it happens that our company, Creation Technologies, is in the business of ensuring our customers’ success by providing mindshare as a critical piece of the partnerships we build.

Watch the video below to learn more about how Creation’s take on risk and mindshare was highlighted to a broad business audience.

I love to talk about strategies to build relationships and help our customers succeed. Please contact me any time if you’d like to chat!

Future of Digital Imaging

The CCD image sensor was invented in 1969 by Bell Laboratories scientists Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, and it launched a digital imaging explosion so significant that it earned the duo the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Today, digital imaging sensor technology continues to improve light sensitivity and image quality.

Exciting products are being introduced at lightning speed, like sensors that use organic material instead of silicon for the photosensitive layer, and graphene-based image sensors that are 1,000 times more sensitive to light than most commercial CMOSs or CCDs.

And imaging equipment designers are finding ways to leverage advancements in M2M and communications infrastructure to improve customer experiences.

Here’s a look at some of the innovations on the imaging scene.

Medical Imaging

Creation Technologies designs and builds products for customers using medical imaging to improve healthcare

Cost considerations and the drive to improve healthcare have pushed the market toward filmless imaging. Its creative applications are fueling a global medical imaging equipment market that’s expected to reach a value of $35.4 billion by 2019.

Creation Technologies designs and builds many products for our customers who employ the CT, MRI and ultrasound technologies that remain the cornerstones of medical imaging.

We’re also seeing new technology and devices that will transform healthcare as we know it…like this “digital mirror” that shows you your organs in real time.

This unique imaging device combines Microsoft’s Kinect camera with medical imaging scans. It captures high-resolution images of bones and organs and projects them on to a mirror-like screen, so that you can see your body moving. This “inside-out” look could easily help a doctor’s verbal explanation come alive.

Thermographic Imaging

Thermal and heat signatures provide a world of information and save lives.

Thermal and heat signatures in the ground beneath us provide a world of information.

Handheld devices equipped with forward-looking infrared radiometry give scientists more accurate information that helps monitor and predict volcano eruptions and earthquakes.

With prices dropping on thermal cameras, home and building inspectors can now carry handheld devices that display thermal images of variations detected behind building surfaces. Hidden problems such as inadequate insulation, plumbing leaks, air duct leaks, and issues with electrical wiring now literally come to light.

At Creation, we’re proud to design and produce these innovative products for our customers who are at the forefront of this industry.

3D Cameras

Off-the-shelf technology can advance OEM imaging capabilities

Spectacular new consumer imaging products like the Lytro Illum light-field camera emerge daily, it seems. The Lytro Illum is able to focus at variable depths and to capture light on multiple planes. This technology lets users take photos in low-light environments without a flash, refocus images after-the-fact, and create 3D imagery from a single shot.

This technology may prove extremely useful in security and medical applications, where OEMs can take advantage of off-the-shelf technology that meets reliability requirements for critical applications.

We Can Help You Develop Imaging Products That Matter

In an industry traveling at the speed of light, digital imaging OEMs are focused on the technology and services that set their company apart from competitors.

Through Continuous Improvement and tailored solutions, Creation helps our customers improve time-to-market so that they can concentrate on what they do best: developing products that matter.

Boyle and Smith probably couldn’t have imagined — or imaged — the range of important imaging products their CCD would make possible today.

Learn how Creation’s design and manufacturing solutions for complex imaging products can help increase your profitability.

Creation’s Executive Team raising funds and awareness for ALS IceBucketChallenge. Left to right: Pat Ciriacks, Creation’s People & Culture Leader; Darryl Catellier, Creation’s Business Systems Leader & Chief Architect; Bhawnesh Mathur, Creation’s President and CEO; Jeff Kuypers, Creation’s Regional Leader – West

Last week, I accepted an Ice Bucket Challenge to raise funds and awareness for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease), a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord and for which there is no current cure or treatment. About 2 in 100,000 people have ALS, which can strike anyone.

If you haven’t heard about the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which went viral earlier this summer, accepting a challenge means that you commit to donating to the cause or having a bucket of ice water dumped on your head!

Like many people, I chose to do both.

And I didn’t take part alone.

It’s More Fun with Your Friends

The entire leadership team in Creation’s Toronto business unit decided to issue a personal challenge to me, as well as challenging some of our other Creation business units and teams.

It was only fitting that all of the members of our executive team in Vancouver that day accepted Toronto’s challenge along with me!

Many people from our Vancouver and Headquarters teams came out to watch. After all, seeing someone dump freezing water on their head is a lot of fun.

In exchange for the entertainment, we challenged everyone watching (in person and online) to get involved.

And so for every Creation person that takes the challenge, Creation Technologies will match your donation of $10.

And for every customer, supplier, friend, neighbour, and family-member you can convince to take the challenge along with you, Creation Technologies will match their donation of $10, too!

Did I mention that we’re also challenging our friends over at Birch Hill, our private equity partner? I can’t wait to see that video! Here’s ours:

Making a Difference

I joined Creation this past April, and one of the things that stood out to me immediately was how people are truly friendly, helpful, and connected to each other and to our suppliers and customers. Our Making a Difference program, formalized in 2009, carries that spirit into the communities in which we live and work.

Our teams in all Creation business units are proud to be able to give back, and feel very fortunate to meet the amazing people and learn about the amazing programs that do so much to make the world a better place.

I’ve heard so many wonderful stories about how we’ve planted trees, painted gyms, made sandwiches, washed boats, built houses, dug latrines (yes, really), and shaved eyebrows.

And now in true Creation fashion, teams across our business units have come together for each other and for ALS, dumping frigid water on their heads in Ice Bucket Challenges.

You can see more of our videos, here on Creation’s YouTube Channel.

The goal of all non-profit organizations is to find impactful ways to raise awareness about critical issues.

I’d say that the ALS Association has done a tremendous job of that through the Ice Bucket Challenges.

I’d also say that I’m really lucky to have a team like mine.

Please take this opportunity to learn more about the fight to treat and cure ALS through research and advocacy at www.alsa.org.

Smart LED Lighting Systems require Smart Manufacturing Solutions

Besides generating bigger electric bills, wasted lighting energy also takes an environmental toll.

Lighting rivals that of light-duty vehicles for global energy consumption. Source: Earth Policy Institute: http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights15

Did you know? Lighting consumption has accounted for almost 20% of the world’s electricity demand.

Even more surprising: Lighting rivals the global automobile fleet in carbon emissions.

Modern, efficient fluorescent and LED lighting systems and technologies help dramatically to reduce waste and improve experience.

And thanks to M2M devices and IT automation, Creation Technologies’ OEM customers are now developing smart lighting systems that leverage the Internet of Things.

These forward-thinking lighting companies are changing everything.

Smart Lighting Systems

At their most fundamental, smart lighting systems use data to make automatic, real-time adjustments.

Light and motion sensors measure when and how a space is being used, and automated controls adjust light levels to match environmental conditions.

When daylight floods a room, for example, smart lighting can react and dim artificial light to maintain the same light level and reduce energy consumption.

Even better than their reactive capabilities, these same systems can also use predictive analytics to anticipate needs.

In our example room, smart lighting will recognize that there are greater odds of more artificial light being required when the room is occupied after sunset than at noon, and plan accordingly.

Smart Manufacturing for Lighting Systems

All contemporary lighting systems require particular manufacturing considerations and capabilities. Some examples:

We’d love to tell you more about what we’re doing at Creation Technologies to make manufacturing lighting systems more than just a shot in the dark! (I couldn’t resist). Contact us anytime.