Surface Mount Technology : Inspection And Rework

Magnifying glasses 5 to 10X with halo lamps
Printed workmanship standards to eliminate confusion
10 to 30X microscope may be required for inspecting difficult parts such as fine pitch components and solder paste quality.
For high volume manufacturing automated visual inspection such as 3 dimensional laser scan or X-ray scan may be justified.

Boards need to be tilted to examine under components when inspecting for trapped contaminants or J type leads. Also, if rework and touch-up are to be done along with inspection, a board positioning table may be useful.
Dental picks or pointed wood sticks are useful to verify the soldering joints of leaded components when in doubt. Use pick or stick to gently push the top edge of lead to check for joint attachment. This prevents damage to the board and lead. An unsoldered lead or one with cold joint will move when pushed and this needs to be touched-up.
Write down or log all defect types using a common vocabulary. This information should be useful to find common defects and trends so their source can be found and eliminated.

Good solder joint:

Rework or repair is required to be done on components/ boards that are not meeting the workmanship or performance standards.
Rework tools that are commonly used are soldering irons, desoldering stations using suction, hot air jets, solder wick etc.
Rework on SOs and other high lead count packages needs prior training and some practice on dummies will be helpful.
Since leads and terminations of SMT packages are small, the thermal requirement is less compared to through-hole component pads. The components are to be removed only after ensuring that all leads are desoldered or solder has reflowed. If not done properly, the chances of damage to the pad area is significant.
Before removing the component gently push it to check for complete solder melt.
When the connecting solder melts on each lead or termination of the component, itâ€™s readily removed and replaced with a new one.
requires operator training as it requires new techniques and new tools.