Designed experiments to analyze the solder joint quality output of a SMD remanufacturing system

A robotic remanufacturing cell system developed at Rensselaer is used to replace a surface mounted component on a populated Printed Circuit Board (PCB). The performance goal is to estimate the high quality solder joint output to measure the cell system's throughput. Maximizing the number of the reliably reworked components by the cell system is not chosen as a goal for measuring the system's performance. This is because rework is a low volume process and the cell being used is an experimental prototype system. The purpose of this paper is to present the steps, factors, and levels for obtaining a good solder joint with the rework cell developed here.