Bob Willis

Bob Willis currently operates a training and consultancy business based in England. Bob is the Technical Director of the SMART Group and a member of the technical committee. Although a specialist for companies implementing Surface Mount Technology Mr Willis provides training and consultancy in most areas of electronic manufacture. In the last 10 years focusing on lead-free manufacture which has eared him the SOLDERTEC/Tin Technology Global Lead-Free Award for his contribution to the industry He has worked with the GEC Technical Directorate as Surface Mount Co-Ordinator for both the Marconi and GEC group of companies and prior to that he was Senior Process Control Engineer with Marconi Communication Systems, where he had worked since his apprenticeship. Following his time with GEC he became Technical Director of an electronics contract manufacturing company where he formed a successful training and consultancy division.

As a process engineer, he was involved in all aspects of electronic production and assembly involved in setting up production processes and evaluating materials; this also involved obtaining company approval on a wide range of Marconi's processes and products including printed circuit board manufacture. During the period with Marconi, experience was gained in methods and equipment for environmental testing of components, printed boards and assemblies with an interest developed in many areas of defect analysis. Over the last 15 years he has been involved in all aspects of surface mounted assembly, both at production and quality level and during that time has been involved in training staff and other engineers in many aspects of modern production.

Over the past few years Mr. Willis has travelled in the United States, Japan, China, New Zealand, Australia and the Far East looking at areas of electronics and lecturing on electronic assembly. Mr. Willis was presented with the Paul Eisler award by the IMF (Institute of Metal Finishing) for the best technical paper during their technical programmes. He has conducted SMT Training programs for Texas Instruments and is currently course leader for Reflow and Wave Soldering Workshops in the United Kingdom. Mr Willis is an IEE Registered Trainer and has been responsible for training courses run by the PCIF originally one of Europe's largest printed circuit associations.

Bob has conducted workshops with all the major organisations and exhibition organisers World Wide and is known for being an entertaining presenter and the only presenter to use unique process video clips during his workshops to demonstrate each point made.

Mr. Willis was Chairman of the SMART Group, European Surface Mount Trade Association from 1990-94 and has been elected Honorary President and currently holds the position of SMART Group Technical Director, he also works on BSI Standards Working Parties. He is a Fellow of the Institute Circuit Technology, an NVQ Assessor, Member of the Institute of Quality Assurance and Society of Environmental Test Engineers. Bob Willis currently writes regular features for AMT Ireland, Asian Electronics Engineer and Circuits Assembly the US magazine. He also is responsible for writing each of the SMART Group Charity Technology reports, which are sold in Europe and America by the SMTA to raise money for worthy causes. Bob Willis most recently helped organise the SMART Group-Lead Free Mission to Japan to examine and report on the current state of lead-free research and implementation of lead-free processes. Bob ran the SMART Group PPM Monitoring Project in the United Kingdom supported by the Department of Trade and Industry. He now is coordinator of the LEADOUT Project for the SMART Group.