• Receive professional recognition of skills and experience.
  
• Acquire certification through formal, educational-based training.
  
• Learn about evolving technologies and tomorrow's challenges.
  
• Technical certification provides a standard for identifying and evaluating required knowledge,
  skills, selling and support.
  
• Educational and experimental processes are designed to assure valid, reliable and accurate assessment of knowledge and expertise.
  
• Learn to perform to defined standards and levels of capabilities.
  
• Recognizes and rewards demonstrated ability.
  
• Validates that a candidate has satisfied a comprehensive set of technical performance requirements.
  
• Increases productivity and credibility within the organization.
  
• Certified employees have been found to solve problems faster, work better in teams and show a higher level of confidence in their own abilities and solutions.
  
• Measures competence levels in a particular product or technology.
  
• Customers look for high levels of service from certified, technical professionals.

Results:

• Improves efficiency through simplification of processes, procedures and relationships.
  
• Minimizes delayed or incomplete projects and cost overruns.
  
• Increases customer satisfaction and decreases support costs through improved service, productivity, and technical self-sufficiency.
  
• Certified employees are more productive than non-certified employees.
  

The Program:
The acceptability of electronic assemblies is the most widely used standard published by the IPC. It maintains an international reputation as the source for end product acceptance criteria for the consumer and high reliability printed wiring assemblies.
This is an industry-consensus program that includes training, certification and instructional materials based on the IPC-A-610 criteria. This certification will demonstrate your commitment to customer requirements and assists any company dedicated to ISO-9000 or other quality assurance initiatives.

This training and certification is highly recognized throughout the electronics industry. Over 3,000 individuals have been trained and certified as IPC-A-610 Class "A" Instructors in the first five years of the program. The IPC-A-610 Training and Certification provides instructors with high quality materials and detailed instructional plans for training operators.

The IPC-A-610 training and certification program has two tiers of instruction. Class "A" instructor candidates are sent by their parent companies to receive intensive training on the IPC-A-610 from an IPC-approved certification center. Candidates are certified once they complete their course of study and pass the certification examination. If they feel they do not need the training course, candidates may opt to take a "challenge test" administered by one of the certification centers. Certified Class "A" instructors are provided instructional materials for training workers in a 20-hour Worker Proficiency training program. Class "A" instructors are considered certified for two years after the course completion date. They must then re-certify at an IPC-approved certification site.

Role and responsibilities of Class "A" instructors:

• Criteria for acceptable laminate conditions.
  
• Soldered connection requirements for plated-through holes.
  
• Surface mounting criteria for chip components, leadless and leaded chip carriers.
  
• Swaged hardware, and heat sink requirements of mechanical assemblies.
  
• Component mounting criteria for DIPS, socket pins, and card edge connectors.
  
• Discrete wiring assembly requirements.
  
• Solder fillet dimensional criteria for all major SMT component groups.
  
• SMT Soldering anomolies, such as tombstoning, dewetting, etc.
  
• Steps to effectively using the lesson plan and materials, tips on inspection and a review of important instructor skills.
  

Who Should Become A "Class A" Instructor?

Anyone responsible for the quality and reliability of electronic assemblies should consider becoming an IPC-A-610 Class "A" Instructor. Trainers and quality supervisors versed in electronic assembly are excellent candidates for Class "A" training, as are engineering and manufacturing supervisors with assembly responsibilities.

The IPC-A-610 training and certification program offers those interested in company-wide quality assurance initiatives. An IPC-sponsored program supports the commitment to continuous improvement of product quality and reliability. The program provides individuals with a portable credential that recognizes their understanding of the IPC-A-610. All IPC-A-610 Class "A" Instructors receive materials for participating in the Class "A" training, as well as instructional materials for conducting worker proficiency training.

These include:

• Over 600 color, teaching visuals on CD-Rom, illustrating every aspect of the IPC-A-610 document and training information.
• An instructor guide providing instructions for conducting the worker proficiency training and testing.
• An IPC-A-610 Class "A" Instructor Student Handbook.w The IPC-A-610C, The Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies and the IPC-T-50 Terms and Definitions for Interconnecting and Packaging Electronic Circuits.
• An open and closed book worker proficiency exam kit.
• Worker proficiency training materials not included in the Class "A" course, such as the
• Worker Proficiency Student Handbooks and Certificates of Course Completion, can be purchased from IPC only by Class "A" Instructors.