Background
Willian Santos, business development manager at ABI,
explains: “In most countries, it is evident that companies have become
much more conscious about their maintenance processes and related
costs. Budget restrictions and the ever-increasing pressure from local
governments to be more ‘green’ are driving businesses towards a
“repair, not replace” strategy. This is creating a demand for people
capable of managing electronics maintenance in a more effective way - producing an increasing pressure on education and training
providers, forcing them to keep pace with the industry demands for
qualified graduates with strong abilities in the fields of electronics
fault finding and repair”.
In
Colombia, SENA identified these requirements through their local
industry partners but also via the free trade agreement signed with the
USA. The research conducted within this agreement indicated that a
long downtime of production equipment would have a negative impact on
the country’s competitiveness.
Thus, the
national directors set about modernizing the education infrastructure
through country-wide projects incorporating all disciplines. In order
to keep with the slogan “SENA, a world class organization”,
SENA turned to worldwide companies with a proven success in education
and an ability to provide internationally recognized training.
Partnership
ABI
Electronics has long been a major partner of education organisations
around the world, supplying proven quality equipment for the teaching
of basic and advanced fault finding techniques in electronics. In
addition, ABI has formed strong ties over the years with key
influential organisations in this sector, including WorldSkills and
SENAI (Brazil).
A range of ABI
equipment was carefully reviewed and selected in order to supply 10
technical schools initially, with a further 15 schools in the second
phase of the project (2013). In return, ABI Electronics also offered a
complete training package, including IPC 610 (through Electronics Yorkshire) as an internationally recognised certification.
Products
Selecting ABI
as a supplier was driven not only by the quality and capabilities of
the equipment but also by the extended support that ABI offered during
the whole process. For instance, the software platform was redesigned
to offer a version in Spanish, which is available “offline” for
students to work at their convenience without hardware. Users will also
benefit from a training package with a range of interactive exercises
(also in Spanish) that can be implemented live using a special training
board.
SENA ordered 30 sets of the following equipment package:
This modular package, highly popular in many fields of applications,
offers in-circuit functional testing of components for both digital
and analogue electronics. Other capabilities include power-off
signature analysis and many re-designable traditional instruments, such
as a digital storage oscilloscope and a function generator.
This versatile solution is
capable of in-system programming and boundary scan testing for
JTAG-enabled devices, a common configuration on recently designed PCBs.
The RevEng package enables users to produce professional quality circuit diagrams from a sample board.
Product package (above): SENA ordered 30 sets for their technical schools
As
a life-long San Francisco Giants fan (having grown up in the Bay Area),
I was thrilled by the team’s dramatic victory over the Detroit Tigers
in the 2012 World Series.
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