A recent blog post in EETimes got us a bit concerned that there may be a trend starting among component manufacturers to stop marking individual components. Markings are NOT just for hobbyists — this is why we think they are important:
- Markings make debugging and inspection much easier. The person doing the work has confidence that the correct part is installed.
- Our AOI (automated optical inspection) machine inspects these marks to ensure the right part is properly installed.
- Suppliers do make mistakes and sometimes ship the wrong parts labelled as the correct parts. The markings on the part body help us detect this at first-article or incoming inspections. Doing so, we can head off significant rework that can result from running the incorrect part at high speed.
- Other errors can also occur occasionally, and rework is less error-prone when the parts are marked.
- Prototyping where assembly is manual is also much easier when parts are marked.
You can read the article that got us thinking here >>