The dynamic development of the electronics industry in the European Union largely depends on the presence of qualified employees on the market. The rapid development of technology, innovative solutions carried out in companies and the requirements related to the need not to disclose confidential information, make it necessary to supplement the traditional educational system by using a system of independent training centres.
The curricula at these centres are aimed directly at meeting industry needs in accordance with current requirements. In addition, there is a need to compare the qualifications of employees, trained in different methods in many educational centres. Verification within the company, if possible, is a long and costly process. For an employee, on the other hand, skills development and their documentation is a method of professional promotion and protection against loss of job. In the electronics industry, training courses are documented by an international certificate issued by the IPC – Association Connecting Electronics Industries. IPC is an international, most important association of manufacturers of the electronics industry.
The mission of the association is to develop uniform quality standards at all stages of production and repair of electronic equipment. Members of the IPC include Jabil, Flextronics, Delphi, PACE, Cisco System, Alcatel, Motorola, Nokia Telecommunications, Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Kimball Electronics Group, Lucent Technologies, Sony Corporation and many other companies, including the smallest ones. These companies often use the services of subcontractors, from which they demand to ensure high quality of work, confirmed, among others, by a well-known and widely recognized IPC certificate. The IPC certification system has been accepted by institutions and companies around the world.
This year, the implementation of IPC standards has been included in the training programme reimbursed by the European Union. The project, carried out under the patronage of the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development, is run by RENEX Electronics Education Center.
As part of the project “Increasing the competitiveness of enterprises in the electronics industry”, refunded training courses for electronics specialists are implemented, including the following issues: ESD – Static electricity – protection of electronic devices; IPC-A-610D CIS – Standard of assembly quality of electronic circuits; IPC-7711A/7721A CIS – Repair and modification of electronic circuits and printed circuit boards – Component I; IPC-7711A/772A1 CIS – Repair and modification of electronic circuits and printed circuit boards – Component II; IPC/WHMA-A-620 CIS Requirements and approvals for the assembly of cables and wiring harnesses; IPC/WHMA-A-620 CIS – Requirements and approvals for the assembly of cables and wiring harnesses + soldering practice.
The trainings are conducted in two organizational forms: Outgoing training sessions – individually for a particular company; Open training cycles at RENEX headquarters – for several entities at the same time (open list of participants). The trainings are conducted in the IPC Authorized Training Centre for Central and Eastern Europe – RENEX Electronics Education Center in Włocławek. A modern building is available to the students. Lecture halls and workshops are equipped with professional systems for production and repair of electronic packages as well as inspection and control equipment. Accommodation is provided in a comfortable hotel belonging to the training complex. Apart from IPC training, RENEX EEC offers many other training courses based on IPC standards (e.g. hand soldering in mixed technology – PTH and SMT).