ESD Protection in the Lab

During the prototyping and debugging phase of a project (Not
production) should the Engineers and Lab Techs be extremely ESD
conscious (i.e. wear ESD straps, ESD smocks, etc)?

I've worked for 4 different companies and it is about a 50/50 split
between ESD protection in the lab and not worrying about it.

One employer's philosophy was "If a part has a high ESD sensitivity
it is better to find that out in the lab and design it out then mask
the problem by wearing all the anti-ESD garb."

Where my current employer is on the other end of the spectrum and has
us checking our ESD wrist bands every time we enter the lab and we must
wear a smock at all times in the lab.


What are your feelings?

"Eric" <ericjohnholland@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1168373651.140236.17700@k58g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> During the prototyping and debugging phase of a project (Not
> production) should the Engineers and Lab Techs be extremely ESD
> conscious (i.e. wear ESD straps, ESD smocks, etc)?
>
> I've worked for 4 different companies and it is about a 50/50 split
> between ESD protection in the lab and not worrying about it.
>
> One employer's philosophy was "If a part has a high ESD sensitivity
> it is better to find that out in the lab and design it out then mask
> the problem by wearing all the anti-ESD garb."
>
> Where my current employer is on the other end of the spectrum and has
> us checking our ESD wrist bands every time we enter the lab and we 
> must
> wear a smock at all times in the lab.
>
>
> What are your feelings?

At a previous employer then we were making very high value avionics 
parts in very small quantities and couldn't afford to take any risks and 
thus the anti-static policy was tight and wrist straps were checked 
daily on pain of death. By the nature of ESD damage then it is hard to 
predict the extent of the damage so QA would not grant flight status to 
any product which was suspected to have been mishandled without copious 
and expensive retesting.

At my current employer then anti-static protection is much more relaxed. 
The production department receive the boards already assembled and 
coated in a thick humiseal so they are less susceptible to damage. In 
R&D then we don't use much at all but then we rarely handle production 
products. However, I'm sure that over the years some component failures 
could be attributed to ESD so when we move to our new site later this 
year then I intend to implement a more stringent standard but I won't go 
so far as insisting on daily strap checks and the like. 

Eric wrote:
> During the prototyping and debugging phase of a project (Not
> production) should the Engineers and Lab Techs be extremely ESD
> conscious (i.e. wear ESD straps, ESD smocks, etc)?

That depends entirely on the kind of project.  ESD measures can be quite 
relaxed, to the point of not caring at all, if you're sure none of the 
prototype/debug hardware will ever escape to a customer, and that there 
are NO special parts (expensive or hard to procure) on those boards.

In the end of the day it's the balance between expected costs of fully 
enforced ESD protection and those of electrocuted prototypes that drives 
the decision.