As in most arenas, the electronics manufacturing industry is facing hi
gh competition in today's world market. One of the most significant de
cisions a printed circuit (PCB) manufacturer has to make in order to r
emain competitive is the selection of the best (in terms of operating
cost and production performance) assembly line configuration on which
to produce its PCBs from among a set of alternatives. On the other han
d, distributors of printed circuit board assembly line systems have th
e task of providing the different assembly line configuration alternat
ives for selection to their electronics manufacturing customers. This
paper is concerned with the integration of various software packages i
nto a decision support system which is being used to aid a manufacture
r of PCB assembly line systems in proposing alternative configurations
to its potential customers.