Automated assembly of printed circuit boards: iterative solution of placement sequencing and feeder configuration problems

Abstract

In automated assembly of printed circuit boards, the placement sequencing and feeder configuration problems turns out to be two of the four major problems that need to be solved efficiently to get better utilization from the use of computer controlled electronic component placement machines. The forms of these problems may show variability depending on the architecture of the placement machine used. In this study one of such machine architectures is undertaken where the most difficult combination of placement sequencing and feeder configuration problems is faced. Given a placement sequencing problem, the feeder configuration problem turns out to be a quadratic assignment problem, and given a feeder configuration the placement sequencing problem turns out to be a traveling salesman problem. However these two problems are highly interdependent and as the overall solution is intractable a sequential and iterative solution procedure is suggested. The proposed solution procedure is applied to test problems in real printed circuit board assembly environments.