Optimal stencil design? DEK shows that it’s elementary

DEK recently encouraged its customers to become ‘de-DEK-tives’ in order to triumph in a prize draw held on its stand at Munich’s Productronica exhibition. Having now revealed the competition winner as Siemens AG’s Mr. Stanek, DEK has successfully drawn attention to the critical nature of stencil design in relation to ongoing product reliability – with a little help from Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Posing as the famous sleuths, DEK’s Martin Böckmann and Jürgen Jess acted out a stencil-related mystery for their stand visitors to solve. In the sketch, after a car failure nearly kills Watson, Sherlock Holmes investigates and traces the fault back to poor stencil design. Visitors were then invited to answer questions about the case and submit their entry into a prize draw. Mr. Stanek has now been awarded his crime-related prize – a netbook and Fred Vargas Crime DVD box-set.

Having worked with Motion Control Systems in Siemens AG’s Industry Sector Drive Technologies Division for some time, Mr. Stanek is responsible for SMD production and looks after eight manufacturing lines. The winner has a long-term relationship with the DEK team, since his Siemens site uses DEK printers, VectorGuard® stencils and Process Improvement Products.

Commenting on the win, Jürgen explains: “We’d like to extend our congratulations to Mr. Stanek – he obviously listened very carefully to our clues at Productronica, just like Holmes would have done! As well as being a lot of fun, this was a fantastic opportunity to highlight the importance of optimal stencil design – something we do particularly well here at DEK. In fact, we’re the only screen printing solutions provider with its own global design and production network for precision screens and stencils covering a wide range of applications. So, thanks to Sherlock and Watson, Productronica visitors learned that they really can expect more when it comes to DEK stencil design and manufacture.”

About DEK

DEK is a global provider of advanced materials deposition technologies and support solutions including printing equipment platforms, stencils, precision screens and mass imaging processes used across a wide range of applications in electronics pre-placement subassembly, semiconductor wafer manufacture, and alternative energy component production. For more information, visit DEK at http://www.dek.com.