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 Issue Number 42 October 1997
Surface Mount '97 The Surface Mount Conference held in Sydney in August was once again an outstanding success with 324 registered delegates over the four days. Over 60% of the delegates were from interstate and New Zealand, confirming the conferences international standng within the electronics industry. SM'97 provided a great opportunity for designers with as many as four sessions offering design content from the international speakers. The Annual General Meeting on the Wednesday morning was an outstanding success. The very special guest speaker Professor Alistair Basil entertained 100 members whose constitutuion was strong enough to overcome the effects of the conference reception, the Elenex party and the Suba Engineering party and still present for breakfast at 8.00am (there were some notable absentees particularly some Kiwis!). Professor Basil said "our time could be well spent discussing your industry in terms of business trends and directions through the eyes of a humble Englishman. It is not all good news. But fortunately my story has a happy ending. You are too technically minded, too involved in the confines of your own area - you lack the broad vision needed to get your industry on its feet. If you could get your noses out of the soldering for a moment and into the real world- you would be able to do something about the import duty scandal. Import duty on the raw materials you need to manufacture your PCBs. It is a disgrace that you are lumbered with this ignominious tax when importing PCBs attracts no duty whatever. How can you just sit there and let your government do this to you? Can't you make your government grasp one obvious fact? If you can manufacture high tech PCBs locally - it will give your electronics industry a firm base from which to export product to the rest of the world! You have heard for years that employees are a company's most valuable asset. Recent research tells us this is wrong. Money is a company's most valuable asset. Employees came in 9th. I hate to tell you what came in 8th. Another word that is over the hill is teamwork. I am mighty sick of it Teamwork, Teamwork. We are a team. We are all equal. Fiddle-de-dee. You are people responsible for your outcomes. When the varnish hits the ventilator-whose backside is on the line? Yours! Not the team. The team is hiding behind the filing cabinet trying very hard not to giggle. The ideal system of mamagement was defined by the most successful businessman in the world - Mr Microsoft himself, Bill Gates. And he said, very wisely: "A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say" This is just a small part of Professor Basil's address which made the AGM one of the highlights of the conference. Our special thanks to Professor Basil's alter ego David Cummings for handing us some very clear messages and thanks again to our sponsors: Major Sponsors of SM'97: AEMS Other Sponsors: Australian Electronics Development Centre SMCBA Executive Committee The following people will be representing you on the SMCBA Executive Committee for the next year. We acknowledge their voluntary support for the Association and the industry through their work for the SMCBA.
Papers from the Journal of Surface Mount Technology: As part of our affiliation agreement with the SMTA, SMCBA members are able to request articles from the Journal produced by the SMTA. Following are the articles in the July 1997 issue of the Journal. If you would like copies please tick next to the relevant articles, fax it to us on (03) 9568 0622 and we will FAX these to you at no charge. July 1997:
Requested by: ____________________ Company: _________________ ***Welcome*** We welcome to the SMCBA the following Corporate Members:
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