A DECISION-SUPPORT TOOL FOR PRINTED-CIRCUIT BOARD ASSEMBLY

This paper presents a decision-support tool to aid electronics designe rs and engineers in quantifying design tradeoffs and predicting the ti me and cost of manufacturing printed circuit board (PCB) assemblies. P rocess activities are identified, quantified and costs allocated, base d on the amount and type of activities used by the PCB assembly. The r esulting cost data allow activities that incur substantial costs to be highlighted, allowing efforts to be concentrated on reducing these co sts. A case example is presented to illustrate the application of the decision-support tool and activity charts developed.