The last decade has seen a rapid extension of electronic control devices for various types of technical products. In modern electronics manufacturing, highly automated assembly systems are used to mount the electronic components onto the printed circuit boards (PCBs). Maintaining high production flexibility in order to meet the desired product variety and, at the same time, achieving high utilization rates of the capital-intensive production equipment can only be achieved by applying highly sophisticated planning and control strategies for the operation of modern placement machines.
Ihsan Onur Yilmaz develops a novel group setup strategy which integrates multiple problems of the PCB assembly, especially in a medium-variety production environment. At the core of his principle approach are the identification of similarities between different types of PCBs and the generation of PCB clusters upon which group setup strategies are based. The developed setup strategies are also innovative in the sense that they integrate the optimization of detailed machine operations. This integration has not been achieved in the classical approaches which primarily rely on statistical clustering techniques.

Autorentext
Dr. Ihsan Onur Yilmaz war wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter im Fachgebiet Produktionsmanagement an der Technischen Universität Berlin.

Zusammenfassung
During the last decade the electronics industry faced growth rates considerably higher than average due to innovative products and the comprehensive use of electronic control devices for almost all types of technical products. Hence, printed circuit board (PCB) assembly can be seen as one of the most dynamic branches of the electronics industry. In modern electronics manufacturing, highly automated assembly systems are used to mount the electronic com- nents at pre-specified locations onto the PCBs. Because of the tremendous complexity of the process technology and huge capital investments, highly sophisticated planning and control strategies are needed for the operation of the assembly plants. In the past both industry and academia became heavily involved in the development of tools and planning concepts which help to master the huge variety of customized electronic pr- ucts. While previous research work has primarily been concerned with a high-volume, l- variety production environment, there is now an ongoing trend towards the use of highly fl- ible manufacturing equipment and the production of printed circuit boards in a mixed - quence with only small lot sizes.

Inhalt
Technological Background.- SMT Placement Machines.- Production Planning in Electronics Assembly.- Development of Group Setup Strategies.- Numerical Investigation.- Conclusions.