The importance of integrating design and manufacturing becomes apparent when the increase in the degree of difficulty of change is observed as the product development proceeds from concept to production in a serial engineering process. The greatest opportunity in design for manufacture occurs at the initial design stage before any...
This research was motivated by the use of multi-track feeders in the printed
circuit board (PCB) assembly. In a low volume, high mix production environment,
setup time is usually considered more important than processing time. Implementation
of multi-track feeders not only increases the capacity of the surface mount
machines but...