Method for populating printed circuit boards

• US 10,470,348 B2
• Filed: 10/05/2015
• Issued: 11/05/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/11/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens AG
• Original Assignee: Siemens AG
• Inventors: Pfaffinger, Alexander, Royer, Christian
• Primary Examiner(s): Arbes, Carl J
• Application Number:
  US15/517,820
• Publication Number:
  US 20170311491A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,492 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 13/00 Apparatus or processes specially adapted for manufacturing or adjusting assemblages of electric components
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 13/0015 Orientation; Alignment; Positioning
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 13/0404 Pick-and-place heads or apparatus, e.g. with jaws
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 13/08 Monitoring manufacture of assemblages
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 13/085 Production planning, e.g. of allocation of products to machines, of mounting sequences at machine or facility level
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 13/0857 Product-specific machine setup; Changeover of machines or assembly lines to new product type

Abstract

Populating printed circuit boards with components on a pick-and-place variant set-up is provided. Each set-up includes a number of components, stocks of which are brought to setting-up tables on the pick-and-place line, and a set-up family is associated with each set-up, the family system, a fixed set-up and multiple printed circuit board types which can be populated using the set-up. The fixed set-up is optimized with respect to a weighted parameter, before determining, by means of a simulation, how well variant set-ups, with which the remaining components of predefined pick-and-place orders are associated, can be implemented on the setting-up tables and brought to the pick-and-place line. The quality of each different weighting is determined in order to determine an optimized weighting.

Claims

1. A method for populating printed circuit boards by means of a pick-and-place line, at which a set-up is made available;

wherein a set-up family that comprises a plurality of printed circuit board types is associated with the set-up,

wherein component types are associated with the set-up, so that a printed circuit board of a printed circuit board type of a set-up family can be populated by means of components of the component types of the set-up;

wherein a first planning period is specified, and is divided into a plurality of second planning periods;

wherein each set-up can be implemented at one or a plurality of setting-up tables through the provision of stocks of the components of the associated component types;

wherein the number of available setting-up tables is limited;

wherein the set-ups are divided into fixed set-ups and variant set-ups,

wherein a fixed set-up is configured to remain implemented unchanged on one or a plurality of setting-up tables during the first planning period,

and a variant set-up is configured to be implemented only temporarily at the one or a plurality of setting-up tables during a second planning period,

the method comprising;

a) registering orders, each for populating a piece count of the printed circuit boards of the printed circuit board type with the components associated with the component types in a predetermined second planning period;

b) associating the component types with the fixed set-ups on the basis of all orders, wherein a fixed set-up family is associated with a fixed set-up, which fixed set up family comprises the printed circuit boards whose associated printed circuit boards can be fully populated with components of component types of the associated fixed set-up;

c) optimizing the association with reference to a maximization of a weighted combination of a production volume and a number of orders, wherein the number of orders corresponds to the number of orders that can be populated by means of the fixed set-up, wherein the production volume corresponds to the total of the production times of the orders that are included in the number of orders, and wherein the weighted combination comprises a total of the product of the number of orders with a first weighting factor and a product of the production volume and a second weighting factor;

d) for each second planning period;

associating the component types with the variant set-ups on the basis of orders of the respective second planning period;

determining a sequence in which the fixed set-ups or the variant set-ups should be set up at the pick-and-place line in order in each case to process the order;

e) determining a criterion that comprises the qualities of the determined sequences of all the second planning periods, wherein the criterion is based on the determined sequences of all the second planning periods, and comprises at least one of a minimization of a downtime, of a number of variant set-ups, of a number of setting-up procedures, of a number of set-up changes, or a weighted combination thereof;

f) determining an optimed weighting at which the criterion is optimized by repeating steps b.) to e.) with a changed weighting of the combination, wherein the steps b.) to e.) are repeated until the criterion has achieved a predetermined quality, or until a predetermined processing time has elapsed

g) ; and

populating the printed circuit boards by means of the set-up that has been determined on the basis of the optimized weighting.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the production volume is given extra weighting in order to reduce the downtimes.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the production volume is given reduced weighting in order to reduce the number of variant set-ups.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the weighted combination additionally comprises a constituent for the total of the number of component types, that are associated with the fixed set-ups, multiplied by the number of orders.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein step c.) is performed by means of a mixed integer program.

6. A computer program product with program code means for carrying out the method as claimed in claim 1, when the computer program product runs on a processing apparatus or is stored on a computer-readable medium.

7. A system for populating printed circuit boards, comprising:

a pick-and-place line; and

a processing apparatus for carrying out the method as claimed in claim 1.