Optimal Production Planning for PCB Assembly

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) play a vital role in our daily lives. With increasing applications of PCBs, one way to increase a PCB manufacturer’s competitiveness in terms of operation efficiency is to minimize production time.

This is the first book to focus on the optimization of the PCB assembly lines’ efficiency. It integrates the component sequencing and the feeder arrangement problems together for the pick-and-place machine and the chip shooter machines; constructs mathematical models and develops an effective heuristic solution approach for the integrated problems of placement machines, the line assignment problem, and the component allocation problem; and develops a prototype of the PCB assembly planning system.

The techniques proposed will enable process planners in the electronics industry to improve their assembly line’s efficiency. Graduate students in operations research can use this to familiarise themselves with the techniques and applications of mathematical modeling.

William Ho is a Lecturer in the Operations & Information Management Group at the Aston Business School, Aston University, UK. In 2004, he obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. His research areas include Operations Management, Operations Research, and Knowledge Management.

Dr Ji worked in Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics during 1985 and 1987 as teaching staff. He has also worked at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and GINTIC Institute of Manufacturing Technology, Singapore. He joined the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1996, and currently he is an Associate Professor there. His research interests are Operations Management, Operations Research, and CAD/CAM.