AUTOMATIC PROCESS PLANNING SYSTEM FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF UNPOPULATED PRINTED-CIRCUIT BOARDS

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are perhaps the most crucial components for electronic products and each product requires a proprietary circui t board. Because of today's rapid introduction of new products, tradit ional manual methods of manufacturing information preparation and manu facturing of circuit boards are no longer acceptable. Therefore, the u se of computer technology to assist design, planning and manufacture o f PCBs is a logical move. This paper discusses the development of an a utomatic process planning system for the manufacture of printed circui t boards. The structure and functions of an automatic process planning system are described. Knowledge and databases are all modeled using o bject-oriented approach. Implementation experience shows that the syst em can provide equivalent planning capabilities as manual process plan ner but can generate process plans in shorter time and the plans are f ound to be more consistent.