ICAPE has introduced an interesting new job designation, that of field application engineer (FAE) and quality director.
As FAE & quality director, the appointee needs to monitor trends in technology development and supplier availability. ICAPE has appointed Erik Pedersen in this new and exciting position.
Erik said he will be using his knowledge, combined with his 33 years’ experience, to co-create new technologies with customers. He also manages complex PCB projects.
He said that communication is one of the cornerstones to improve customer relations. “With our worldwide programmes of webinars and tech days, including various PCB-related topics, I will continuously develop and transfer technical knowledge to our customers and internally to our employees. I manage a strong team of experienced FAE and quality engineers and am also in charge of our local quality team who, in close cooperation with our team in China and our suppliers, constantly strives to optimise our customers’ quality experience.
“We offer a wide range of advanced PCB technologies such as HDI, Flex, Rigid/Flex, RF/HF, IC substrate, etc. During my career, I have been working with, and have good experience with, most PCB product types. I have been working with production, test and quality, pre-production engineering, PCB trading, sales and FAE. I use this experience to support and advise our customers to find the best possible solutions for their PCB design, stack-ups, raw material choices, signal integrity, special tolerances, or unusual applications in the final products. By involving ICAPE FAE from the beginning of the project, customers are able to choose the right technology for the right application, which can help to save time and money and improve reliability.
FAE is a product support function
FAE is a support function for sales and customers. It facilitates the transfer of product knowledge and special demands from the customer, throughout the organisation and to suppliers. “We are in daily contact with the purchasing, sourcing, quality and engineering teams, as well as our suppliers in China, to safeguard the projects from the development stage to the final product delivered to our customers.”
What skills must a good FAE director have?
He must have a good knowledge of all technologies used and each process step to produce PCB. Good communication skills are also a necessity to create links between all the actors in the manufacturing process. He must be able to have a lot on his plate! He must use his knowledge to adapt to constantly new situations and face new challenges. He must learn fast and keep up to date with the technology and material developments. Nowadays, demands on the electronic market are constantly moving toward more powerful and compact designs, which brings a lot of challenges. “We participate in the innovation to find new solutions to new demands. To briefly describe the skills needed, I would emphasise good management skills, creativity, innovation, motivation and strong communication skills.
Basic PCB manufacturing has not changed much since the 80s. The raw materials have improved and a few new manufacturing processes have been developed, such as laser drilling, laser direct imaging and a few others. Today some suppliers can produce 30µm traces, 70µm laser drill holes – things we would have considered impossible 30 years ago.
“I want to challenge and push the boundaries of PCB technologies. I want to increase the PCB technology knowledge level in our organisation through our internal technology training programmes. I want to expand our external customer communication on webinars, tech days and website content to increase our customer confidence in advanced and complex PCB technology. They can trust that ICAPE is the best PCB provider in the world.
It's a very exciting job”, he said.
Watch Erik explaining his new position here
