This blog is also available in Spanish.

As we noted in part one of our series, certification programs are based on exams designed to measure a person’s current competency while certificate programs are linked to training programs meant to help individuals acquire new knowledge and skills. How and when you use these credentials depends on what you and your organization want to accomplish.

CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS (VALIDATION)

Employers invest in IPC certifications and associated guidelines to help ensure the quality, reliability, and consistency of the electronic products they produce. This attention to quality decreases rework and repair, promotes the development of standardized process controls that boost efficiency and increases competitiveness in a challenging global market.

Given the tight labor market, employers are also increasingly aware of the role that certification plays in employee performance and retention. IPC-certified employees value the recognition of employers and colleagues as experts in their fields, and studies show that workplace recognition has a positive effect on employee motivation, engagement, and longevity. For example, the Manufacturing Institute’s 2020 survey on engagement and retention reports that “employees who feel valued are more than four times as likely to report high levels of work engagement (59% vs. 13%) and less likely to say they feel stressed out on a typical workday (16% vs. 66%) or that they plan to leave the company within the next year (2% vs. 12%).”

IPC certification may be a contractual obligation, especially for the production of high-reliability class 3 products. However, it’s important to review your manufacturing services agreement and vendor qualification documents to accurately assess your credentialing requirements. Organizations that work to industry-specific quality management standards (QMS) must ensure the competency of their employees, but they usually have options when it comes to providing training and documenting the attainment of the required knowledge and skills.

In his article on training and competency requirements for medical equipment providers working to ISO 13485, biomedical engineer and medical device guru Tim Rish notes that, “competency can be gained through education, certification, skills development, and experience [as long as] it results in the competency of personnel to perform the necessary job functions specific to their roles.” Similarly, section 7.2 of the widely adopted AS9100 QMS standard for the aerospace industry states that, “employees must be competent in the work they are assigned to perform based on education, training, or experience. If they are found to not be competent, the organization must take actions to help that person become competent, consider reassignment, or hire competent persons.”

CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS (TRAINING)

IPC certification programs play a critical role in confirming the competency of hundreds of thousands of electronics manufacturing workers across the globe. In fact, as of 2022, certifications to the top six internationally recognized IPC standards are offered in 20 languages across 108 countries.

However, there is a big difference between verifying that someone already has the skills to perform a job and helping a person acquire those skills. Back in 2017 and 2018, IPC interviewed over a thousand industry members across the globe to better understand their training needs. We learned that many companies were not benefitting from IPC certification programs because these are designed to measure and validate a person’s current ability to understand and navigate a given standard—and what they actually needed was a program designed to teach employees new knowledge and skills.

In response, IPC hired a group of learning professionals, industry experts, and media specialists to develop accurate, engaging, and cost-effective training programs that teach operators, technicians, engineers, designers, and managers how to perform specific job functions to industry-defined levels of proficiency.

COMPLEMENTARY CREDENTIALS

Certificate and certification programs play two distinct but reinforcing roles in workforce training and development. For example, in the IPC workforce training framework for operators, a new employee with little or no exposure to electronics manufacturing can take the IPC Electronics Assembly for Operators course to learn the basics (e.g., documentation, component identification, soldering processes). Having acquired the relevant job-specific skills, operators that work with the IPC-A-610 or IPC-J-STD-001 standards can take the IPC-A-610 for Operators or IPC-J-STD-001 for Operators course to get quickly up to speed. Moreover, because IPC operator workforce training programs are divided into content-specific courses and modules, the same course pathway is also effective for experienced operators that need a particular subset of skills to take on new roles.  

At this point, the operator is ready to complete any relevant hands-on training (e.g., hand soldering, loading component reels, operating an AOI machine) and begin working under the tutelage of an experienced employee.  

The operator is now also ready to attend an IPC-A-610 or IPC-J-STD-001 certification program if their employer deems it necessary to validate their ability to navigate and apply one of these standards. It makes little sense to send operators to a certification program before this point in their professional development because these courses are designed for those who already have a solid grasp of the components, processes, and measures referenced in the standard.

The same is true for other job roles. For example, industry members asked IPC to develop and deliver IPC Electronics Assembly for Engineers because engineers new to the electronics manufacturing industry are unfamiliar with the terminology and concepts discussed in an IPC standards certification program. Thus, like the workforce training framework for operators, the training framework for engineers begins with an introduction to the fundamentals before moving on to more advanced topics, and if necessary, certification.

TRAINING WITH THE OPTION TO CERTIFY

Some training programs are designed to help individuals acquire job-related knowledge and skills and prepare them for a certification exam. For example, anyone with a basic understanding of program management can take the IPC Certified Electronics Program Manager course to grow their ability to perform this role within the fast-moving world of electronics manufacturing. Students who successfully complete the course receive a numbered certificate of achievement that demonstrates satisfactory completion of the class. In addition, those individuals who meet the educational and experiential requirements to sit for the CEPM certification exam may do so within 6 months of completing the course. Certification exam candidates who attain a passing score receive a certificate of certification that attests to their ability to perform the role of program manager at a level of proficiency defined by the electronics manufacturing industry.
Training with the option to certify provides industry members the flexibility they need to meet their company’s particular competency requirements, whether it be just training, training plus certification, or just certification. As a result, upcoming IPC Workforce Training Programs focusing on the role of inspectors and manufacturing engineers will provide the same options.

WANT TO HELP TRAIN THE NEXT GENERATION OF PROFESSIONALS?

IPC workforce training and certification programs are especially effective because they are developed in partnership with subject matter experts from across the electronics manufacturing industry. If you would like to help the next generation of professionals as an IPC subject matter expert, please don’t hesitate to reach out at: education@ipc.org

Make sure to check out the first part of this two-part article to learn more about the differences between certificate and certification programs.

This blog post is also available in Spanish.

The terms “certification” and “certificate” are often used interchangeably, but in the world of credentials, there are well-defined differences. These differences have important implications for when and how your organization invests in training and validation programs. In part 1 of this series, we’ll break down the meaning and characteristics of each term. In part 2, we’ll explain how you can leverage each credential to achieve your goals.

CERTIFICATION

A certification is a document issued by an independent certifying body like IPC to verify that an individual possesses a defined set of previously acquired knowledge, skills, and abilities in a field of practice. Individuals are usually required to take an exam to demonstrate possession of these competencies at a level of proficiency defined by industry-based standards or criteria. Test candidates who successfully complete the exam are issued a certificate that attests to their certified status. The awarded document is called a certificate, but it denotes the attainment of a certification.

Certification programs are not linked to a specific training program. In fact, any person who meets the certification program’s eligibility requirements may sit for the exam. Given the rigorous nature of certification exams, some type of formal or informal test preparation is usually advisable. However, test prep is not mandatory because the exam is not designed to assess whether or not a student learned what was taught in a course of study. Instead, certification exams are designed to validate and recognize a person’s current competencies. That is why you have certification eligibility requirements. Individuals with a given level of education and years of experience on the job will have had the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills measured by the exam. The role of the certification exam as a validation tool also explains why exam participants cannot see the questions they missed. The exam would quickly lose its ability to accurately measure competency if the questions and answers were common knowledge.

Finally, it’s important to address some misconceptions about the certification exam development process. Despite popular perception, certification exams are not created by random individuals intent on making the questions as difficult or trivial as possible. As the authors of Developing Certification Exam Questions: More Deliberate Than You May Think, explain, developing relevant, reliable, and fair exam questions—questions that employers can rely on to confirm that an employee can actually perform given tasks—is a necessarily long and systematic process that requires the dedication of carefully selected subject matter experts and extensive statistical evaluation by experienced psychometricians (scientists who study the measurement of people's knowledge, skills, and abilities). 

CERTIFICATE 

A certificate program is synonymous with training. Participants are awarded a certificate of achievement or completion upon successful conclusion of a training program designed to teach them new knowledge and skills. Unlike the educational and experiential requirements necessary to sit for a certification exam, most training programs are open to a wide array of participants. However, in some cases students may be asked to complete specific courses before taking more advanced courses in the same subject.  

Well-designed training programs use tests as both a learning and evaluation tool. Practice activities, knowledge checks, and quizzes allow students to assess their understanding and refine their skills, but only those students who attain the passing score on an assessment designed to verify learning are awarded a certificate. According to the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE), assessment-based certificate (ABC) programs are well suited to help employees acquire the specific skills required to do their jobs to industry-defined levels of proficiency. Of course, not all ABC programs are created equal, so it’s important to consider only those offered by organizations like IPC that work closely with industry experts and learning specialists to develop and deliver real-world knowledge and skills in ways that ensure on-the-job applicability. 

IN SUMMARY

Certificate programs are synonymous with training designed to teach new knowledge and skills. Individuals who successfully complete a training program receive a certificate of completion or a certificate of achievement. This is analogous to the diploma a student receives upon successfully completing a high school course of study. Certification programs are synonymous with a rigorous exam designed to measure a person’s competency in a particular field. Individuals who pass a certification exam receive a certificate of certification. This is analogous to passing a bar exam in order to practice law in a given jurisdiction.

Make sure to read the second part of this two-part article to learn more about how to use certificate and certification programs to meet your organization’s needs.