Optimization of the assignment of circuit cards to assembly lines in electronics assembly

Process planning is an important and integral function for ensuring efficient operations in printed circuit card assembly systems. This paper presents a new approach for solving the circuit card to assembly line assignment problem to minimize assembly time. This problem occurs frequently in process planning for electronic assembly systems and involves considering other interelated process planning problems. The line assignment problem is formulated as a large-scale mixed-integer programming problem and then solved using problem decomposition along with the branch-and-bound algorithm. Techniques for improving the solution time are discussed, and the solution approach is demonstrated using industry representative data sets from Lucent Technologies. For the data sets considered, the solution approach provides solutions within 3% of optimal in approximately 6 min of computation time on a Sun UltraSparc 2 Workstation. The solution approach developed for addressing the line assignment problem can serve as a useful decision-support tool by offering significant opportunities to improve the productivity and throughput of the assembly lines with improved process plans. The approach also allows planning engineers to respond faster to changes in production requirements. This research will be of interest to researchers in printed circuit card assembly systems and to practitioners in both original equipment manufacturing and contract assembly firms.

[1]  Surendra M. Gupta,et al.  SMT FEEDER SLOT ASSIGNMENT FOR PREDETERMINED COMPONENT PLACEMENT PATHS , 1996 .

[2]  Surendra M. Gupta,et al.  SIMULTANEOUS COMPONENT SEQUENCING AND FEEDER ASSIGNMENT FOR HIGH SPEED CHIP SHOOTER MACHINES , 1996 .

[3]  J. C. AMMONS,et al.  Component allocation to balance workload in printed circuit card assembly systems , 1997 .

[4]  Manfred Gronalt,et al.  Component kitting in semi-automated printed circuit board assembly , 1996 .

[5]  Kimberly Paige Ellis.  Analysis of setup management strategies in electronic assembly systems , 1996 .

[6]  Margaret L. Brandeau,et al.  Cost minimization and workload balancing in printed circuit board assembly , 2001 .

[7]  T. T. Narendran,et al.  Grouping PCBs for set-up reduction: a maximum spanning tree approach , 1996 .

[8]  Wilbert E. Wilhelm,et al.  RESEARCH DIRECTIONS IN ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING , 1992 .

[9]  T. L. Ward,et al.  Solving Quadratic Assignment Problems by ‘Simulated Annealing’ , 1987 .

[10]  O. Nevalainen,et al.  Optimization of the movements of a component placement machine , 1989 .

[11]  Leon F. McGinnis,et al.  Computer-aided process planning in printed circuit card assembly , 1992 .

[12]  Shailendra Jain,et al.  Implementing Setup Optimization on the Shop Floor , 1996, Oper. Res..

[13]  Avraham Shtub,et al.  Grouping methods for printed circuit board assembly , 1991 .

[14]  Brett A. Peters,et al.  Analysis of partial setup strategies for solving the operational planning problem in parallel machine electronic assembly systems , 1996 .

[15]  K. Feldmann,et al.  Optimization of Set-up Strategies for Operating Automated SMT Assembly Lines , 1991 .

[16]  Avraham Shtub,et al.  Role of similarity measures in PCB grouping procedures , 1992 .

[17]  Panagiotis Kouvelis,et al.  Staging Problem of a Dual Delivery Pick-and-Place Machine in Printed Circuit Card Assembly , 1994, Oper. Res..

[18]  Saw Sandra Roijakkers,et al.  Sequencing interdependent jobs , 1992 .

[19]  Moshe Dror,et al.  Printed circuit board family grouping and component allocation for a multimachine, open-shop assembly cell , 1994 .

[20]  Reza H. Ahmadi,et al.  Component Fixture Positioning/Sequencing for Printed Circuit Board Assembly with Concurrent Operations , 1995, Oper. Res..

[21]  Marco Perona,et al.  Cell formation in PCB assembly based on production quantitative data , 1993 .

[22]  Margaret L. Brandeau,et al.  Design of manufacturing cells: Operation assignment in printed circuit board manufacturing , 1991, J. Intell. Manuf..

[23]  Leon F. McGinnis,et al.  AUTOMATED PROCESS PLANNING FOR PRINTED CIRCUIT CARD ASSEMBLY , 1992 .

[24]  J. I. van Zante-de Fokkert,et al.  A hierarchical planning approach for PCB assembly , 1997 .

[25]  O. E. Flippo,et al.  The assembly of printed circuit boards : a case with multiple machines and multiple board types , 1995 .

[26]  Avraham Shtub,et al.  Grouping components in printed circuit board assembly with limited component staging capacity and single card setup: Problem characteristics and solution procedures , 1997 .

[27]  Charles H. Fine,et al.  An Empirical Study of Manufacturing Flexibility in Printed Circuit Board Assembly , 1996, Oper. Res..

[28]  Hanif D. Sherali,et al.  Linear Programming and Network Flows , 1977 .

[29]  Kathryn E. Stecke,et al.  Formulation and Solution of Nonlinear Integer Production Planning Problems for Flexible Manufacturing Systems , 1983 .

[30]  Tien-Chien Chang,et al.  PCB assembly setup reduction using group technology , 1991 .

[31]  Margaret L. Brandeau,et al.  Optimal Component Assignment and Board Grouping in Printed Circuit Board Manufacturing , 1998, Oper. Res..

[32]  Charles R. Standridge,et al.  Modeling and Analysis of Manufacturing Systems , 1993 .

[33]  Laurence A. Wolsey,et al.  Integer and Combinatorial Optimization , 1988 .

[34]  Oded Maimon,et al.  Set-up saving schemes for printed circuit boards assembly , 1993 .

[35]  Manocher Djassemi,et al.  A new grouping measure for evaluation of machine-component matrices , 1996 .

[36]  Thomas L. Landers,et al.  A heuristic algorithm for minimizing total production time for a sequence of jobs on a surface mount placement machine , 1993 .