COMPUTER-AIDED PROCESS PLANNING IN PRINTED-CIRCUIT CARD ASSEMBLY

In the current environment of rapid technological change, the printed circuit card assembly manufacturer is often required to produce a wide variety of circuit card assemblies while maintaining a high level of quality and minimizing both production time and cost. Assembly automat ion has also become very expensive, in terms of both initial investmen t cost and operating costs. Thus optimizing assembly processes to achi eve high levels of utilization and production, with minimal work-in-pr ocess inventory, is increasingly important. Process planning can repre sent a significant factor in achieving both of these objectives. This paper presents the decision problems in process planning, our solution approaches for these problems, and the implementation results from ou r experiences to date with industrial partners.