DETERMINING THE MANUAL SETTING ORDER OF COMPONENTS ON PC BOARDS

The task of designing efficient and easy-to-learn sequencing for manua l installation of electrical components on a printed circuit board is studied at a computer monitor manufacturer. Advantageous sequences can be characterized by several nonstrict rules: use both hands equally i n the insertion, proceed from top to bottom and from the edges to the center, take the closest next part, and so on. Three different orderin g methods are discussed: line sweeping, traveling salesman clustering, and weighted 3-matching. Line sweeping gives a very different layout from those of traveling salesman clustering and weighted 3-matching.