From production to product development — the electronics operator's broad role

Most think of the electronics operator as someone who executes a job description others have written. But according to Industry Education's own description of the trade the role reaches further: experienced operators also function as sparring partners in product development have customer contact about production and can be sent out to start up production at the company's foreign branches.

§More than just following a job description

The more experience you get with assembling and testing a product, the more you also see where a design makes the work unnecessarily difficult – a component impossible to reach with a soldering iron, a test point hidden behind another part, or cable routing that barely fits. That knowledge is gold if it comes back to those who design the next product.

§Sparring partner in product development

Giving feedback on whether a design is easy to manufacture in practice is often called "design for manufacturability" — manufacturing-friendly design. An operator asked for advice early in the development of a new product can point out problems before they are expensive to fix, instead of discovering them the first time the product needs to go into full production.

• 01Are components positioned so they can be mounted and soldered without problems?
• 02Are test points accessible for automatic and manual checking?
• 03Can cables and connections be laid without pushing the limits of what is possible?
• 04Has the quality class the product must meet been considered?

§Customer contact about production

Some electronics operators have direct contact with customers who have ordered a specific production. Here it is about being able to explain how production progresses, answer questions about status and quality, and convey any challenges in a way that makes sense to a customer who does not necessarily know the production floor.

§Commissioning of production abroad

If the company has production in several places in the world, an experienced operator can be sent out to help commission a new line or transfer knowledge to colleagues at a foreign department. This requires that you can not only perform the work yourself, but also explain and train others in it — a different skill than the craft itself.

§How you move that way

The way there starts with becoming really good at the basics: understanding the process so well that you can put into words why something is difficult or easy to produce. Show that you can communicate it to others — colleagues trainers or management — and the opportunities to be involved more broadly often come by themselves.