Welcome

PURPOSE

The purpose of KOTEL is to promote quality, reliability and efficiency of electronic components, equipment, systems and software design, manufacturing, procurement and maintenance in Finland.

To achieve these goals, the organization strives for combining the knowhow of its Finnish members and promoting national and international cooperation. The other means and practical measures for success are training seminars, research projects and working group activities.

COLLABORATION

KOTEL is based on cooperation and collaboration

  • Working groups and Research projects are the essence of cooperation & collaboration between member companies.
  • 23 member companies (various industries and engineering services) and research/educational institutes; approximately 100 active members in projects and working groups
  • At domestic level main cooperation and collaboration continues with Technology Industry of Finland and National Electrotechnical Standardization Organization in Finland (SESKO)
  • International cooperation is carried out in the Nordic and European level. Within Europe KOTEL cooperates actively with Committee of European Engineering Societies CEEES (In Finland this cooperation is under the SEEF-group, KOTEL holds Vice Precidency position of CEEES).

KOTEL seeks actively and continuously new opportunities for co-operation and collaboration

Some recent themes: Introduction of micromembership for small members (<20 employees), Scandinavian collaboration (Sweden, Denmark), Proposals for CEEES Precidency and TAB contacts/participation, Potentials
in FIIF (Finnish Internet Forum, www.fiif.fi), new members introduction and onboarding

ESSENCE IN WORKING GROUPS

Working Groups are the backbone of the operation and open for all KOTEL members

  • Working groups function as forums for active information sharing and cooperation.
  • In the working groups, experts from member companies jointly conduct studies, small projects, benchmarks, workshops etc. (which result working group reports), initiate and organize seminars and prepare and conduct research projects. 

Active working groups:

  • TR 5/6 – Environmental and Reliability Engineering
  • TR 7 – EMC/ESD
  • TR 19 – Eco-design and Sustainability
  • SEEF (International cooperation)

Typically several meetings take place yearly including national and international company and testing laboratory visits. Of particular interest are Nordic and European cooperation, which have seen increasing activity in recent years. 

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Research projects typically focus on seeking solutions for the problems of the participating KOTEL member companies

  • Each project is launched on the basis of the membership interest
  • Costs are covered by participants and by public funding (e.g. BusinessFinland)
  • Project steering team is establihed by project members
  • Board of KOTEL names the responsible leader for the project
  • Results are immediately available for participating companies
  • Final reports are published 2 years after the project in KOTEL report series — list of reports & prices at Kotel web-pages: http://www.kotel.fi/fi/julkaisut

Latest finished projects: PORE (Reliability of Polymer Materials), RECO (Reduce cost and maintaining reliability through product lifecycle) and REFLEX (Reliability and lifetime of flexible epoxy polymer capacitor)

Projects under preparation 2019: KOTEL 191: Study of Conformal and Adaptive Coating and Molding Techniques for Electronic Assemblies Protection (PROTEC), KOTEL 192: Study on Aging, Lifetime, Failure Mode and Root Causes for Corrosion Faults (STUCOR)

SEMINARS

Working groups topics and research projects results are presented in open Seminars or in Extended Working Group Meetings

KOTEL may also arranged seminars for certain special topics, but typically these are combined with research project results publishing

  • Seminars are typically for members as well as external participants.
  • Extended Working Group Meetings are open for KOTEL members and for others per invitation.
  • Examples of seminars and extended work group meetings:
    • 2015: Extreme testing (Bofors Test Center, Sweden) visit, Reliability and lifecycle cost seminar
    • 2016: SW Reliability seminar, Reliability Centered Maintenance seminar
    • 2017: Reliability of flexible capacitors and life profiles and uncertainties on reliability and verification (KOTEL-CEEES seminar), Reliasoft Alta training, IoT & Digitalization and Failure Analyses seminar and company visits
    • 2018: EMC ja IoT seminar, Reliability of Polymer Materials project seminar

Some ideas for the future: Environmental requirements and Corrosion –seminar/training, Material characteristics (polymers & plastics) for Engineering, Latest trends on PCB materials and requirements, 3D printing methods, Condition monitoring and IoT, …