© ASTRON
NEWAYS specializes in development, engineering, production and distribution of electronic products. At arrival we were warmly welcomed with coffee and fryske oranjekoeke. After this warm welcome, we suited up in ESD clothing to have an exclusive tour into the innovative world of automated assembly of micro-electronics. We followed all the manufacturing steps up to a fully populated printed circuit that complies with required IPC* quality standards. All the essential steps like paste stencil manufacturing, automated pick and placement and checking with the AOI* were explained in great detail by the NEWAYS staff.
After the tour we walked to the Elfstedenhal for a presentation by Hans Ketelaars. We received a great presentation of the capabilities of NEWAYS technologies company, and a nice discussion followed on technology development and the capabilities of the NEWAYS holding.
A delicious lunch was served, and after a goodbye to the NEWAYS staff we went bowling in the Grote Keizer! It was time for some leisure and we split up into teams and played ten-pin bowling. The combination of good throwing skills and accurate pointing is required to get a strike, the ultimate score at every throw. A lot of different throwing styles were used to get a strike, but somehow these radio guys can point pretty well. (3 of the 4 top ranked players). Must be the daily work with analog beamforming concepts. Anyway it was great, I think this was a great and joyful outing of the R&D team. Thank you all.
IPC = IPC Association Connecting Electronics Industries
AOI = Automated Optical Inspection
PS: Mark Ruiter ended up as ultimate winner being "best bowler of the R&D department 2017"! Albert-Jan Boonstra won "the most average player prize" en Sarod Yatawatta won the "encouragement prize"...