Month: October 2011

Blog Reorganization

If you check the blog often, you may have realized that we have changed a couple things.  I will try to provide a quick summary of what has changed:

  • Name – We have changed from PCS Engineering Blog to The PC Systems Blog.  This is because we have added contributors and hope to round out the content.
  • Theme – We changed our blog engine to WordPress so it required a change in theme.
  • Categories – We are going to start organizing our posts a little better using categories and tags which should help direct you to the content you want.
  • Content Strategy – With the addition of team members willing to contribute, it is our hope that we can develop a schedule and update the blog on a regular basis.  Also, we hope to develop additional content, such as whitepapers.

We appreciate your patience during the transition!

New electrode design improves weld performance

I want to share a continuous improvement effort that was presented by one of our Quality Engineers, Dave Gillen.  Dave has worked at PC Systems since “the beginning” and has consistently been looking to improve peel performance of welded wire to Copper solder tabs, which is one of our core products.   Through a series of corrective action activities, he had declared that the “flaring” of wires when welding smaller gauges (18/20/22AWG) caused a lower peel value on the weld.   Even worse, the “flare” was unpredictable, leading to variability.

Dave found that the “flaring” was caused by the upper electrode design.  It was cut as a radius, which did not always capture the wires before the weld.  He designed a new upper electrode in a trapezoidal shape.  In Dave’s words, “the results were remarkable”, and I agree!

Variability of the weld was reduced significantly with respect to weld peel.  Also, the aesthetic difference is impressive as well, as you can see in the photographs.  We look forward to using this new design and improving our capability at the welders.  As we are all aware, this reduced variability will likely lead to reduced scrap and increased throughput, allowing us to manage our costs for your benefit!

Addition of Andy Gahr To The Team

What an exciting time to be part of PC Systems!  Not too long ago, I introduced you to Kevin Genevro, a new Engineer to our team.  I have similar exciting news on the Quality front as Andy Gahr joins our team as Quality Manager.  Andy carries a stellar resume and we consider his addition a big step in our growth as an organization.  Take a look at his LinkedIn profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/andrew-gahr/7/956/7a0

Andy has been certified as a Six Sigma Black Belt, Army Veteran, and is well known locally for his excellent Quality background.  More importantly, he has immediately contributed and had an impact at PCS.

With Andy’s guidance, we have rewritten our Design and Development procedures to provide more value to our customer.  This was a follow-up to some of our Value Stream Map exercises to get rid of Waste in those processes.  Hopefully you get an opportunity to feel the benefits of these improvements on your next RFQ with PCS.

Please help me welcome Andy as we continue to transition our company into a solutions provider for all of your electrical interconnect needs.

An additional note, some of you who have had the pleasure of working with Dave Gillen (former QM) in the past may wonder what his status is.  He is still here and will be working with Andy in the Quality department helping in all the ways he has in the past.