Ask Helena & Leo

Question: Some time ago my company ran into issues with erratas that were added to our IPC-A-610 manuals. An ISO auditor did not like that we were adding notes to our standards. Lots of questions were asked (can you guarantee all updates are the same, this ink smears, have all operators in the factory been trained to the updates, are all of your customers aware of the changes, etc. etc. etc.). My company really doesn’t want to buy the IPC/WHMA-A-620B non-errata books. Is there any indication when the books including erratas will come out?

Answer: Great question and a challenge obviously in the compliance arena. IPC-610 never had an errata sheet, although the IPC did produce a correction sheet which were provided to the instructors, identifying the errors in the first printing of the document. These were not distributed to students, but conveyed during classes.

The second printing of the document had information on the title page identifying that the items on the first page of the correction sheet are now included within the document. I realize the second sheet is not part of the book yet and when the instructors provides this information, many times notes are made and marked in the specification, which is against some company rules and regulations and where problems develop with auditors.

The 620 document also had some editorial and technical items, which needed to be corrected, but these changes will not published through an errata sheet. The changes to fix typos and technical matters will be handled through the generation and publication of an amendment to the document. That amendment has been completed and is currently at the printer and should be released within the next couple of weeks.