Group 7

Operations Management Term Paper

Optimization of PCB manufacturing

Anuj Talwar 2018SMF6605

Ruchit Patel 2018SMF6561
Soubhik Basu 2018SMF6603
Tanmay Bhavsar 2018SMF6610
Rishab Goyal 2018SMF6612
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Table of Contents

Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................2
PROCESS.........................................................................................................................................................................2
Production of PCBs.........................................................................................................................................................3
The Decision-Making Problem .......................................................................................................................................4
Formulation ...................................................................................................................................................................5
Travelling salesman problem (TSP) ...........................................................................................................................6
Assignment Problem (AP) ..........................................................................................................................................7
The Heuristic ..................................................................................................................................................................8
APPLICATION .................................................................................................................................................................8
Impact of changing initial sequence ..............................................................................................................................9
RESULTS OF COMBINATORIAL OPTIMIZATION ............................................................................................................10
Software Development ................................................................................................................................................10
Further Scope ...............................................................................................................................................................12
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Introduction
M/s Sree International Ltd. is a company based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The main operation of the
company is converting bare PCBs received from their clients into PCBs. In other words, the firm
populates bare PCBs with components through surface mounting operations. Printed Circuit Board (PCB)
is one of the essential components in any electronic good such as refrigerators, mobile phones, laptops
etc. PCB is an electric circuit, flat plate or base of insulating material containing a pattern of conducting
materials and components. A bare PCB is a PCB on which no components are mounted. PCBs can be
single-sided or double-sided. A single-sided PCB is one on which components are attached only on one
side whereas a double-sided PCB is one on which components are mounted on both sides.

A heuristic approach was proposed by Chang, Hwang and Murthy to improve the component insertion
process in the production of PCBs. The objective of this approach is to minimize the manufacturing time,
the decision problem being:

(i) sequencing the holes in the PCB for insertion, and

(ii) the assignment of component types to stations that hold them.

PROCESS
One of the main process involved in the manufacturing process is the stuffing operation. In this process,
various components are mounted on the surface of bare PCBs. Mounting of the components is done by
an automatic computer-controlled machine. The machine consists of feeders, a head, a flat board, and is
connected to a micro-processor. Feeders are loaded with strips of components so that each feeder holds
only one type of components.
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DEFINITIONS: To understand the manufacturing of PCBs, the understanding of following terms is

essential.

1. Feeder Locations:
Each feeder has a front position, called the feeder location, from where the head picks up a
component. The moment a component is picked up from a feeder, the next component on the strip
of that feeder moves forward to the front position of the feeder.

2. Feeder Allocation:
Assigning various types of component strips to feeders is called feeder allocation. In the actual
operation, component the machine head moves from MRP to RP and then finally to Feeder location.
From the second component onwards, the machine head moves directly from component location
to feeder location to pick up a component and from feeder location to a component location to
place a component

Production of PCBs
The company receives orders in batches. That is, each client will send a lot of bare PCBs and the
company's job is to mount the components on each of the bare PCBs in the lot. The operations
for converting one bare PCB into a PCB, is same for every bare PCB in the lot. Inputs that are
necessary for converting a bare PCB into a PCB are:

• Coordinates of home position of the head.

• Coordinates of the feeder locations.
• Coordinates of each component location along with the type of the component.
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In addition to the above, the manager has to determine the feeder allocation and a mounting
sequence (the order in which the components are to be mounted) to the micro-processor. Once
this is done, a bare PCB is placed and the operation (production) is started.

The Decision-Making Problem

• Order of 3000 PCBs

• Time saved in mounting components = production time saved = potential saving

• Mounting time ∝ Distance traversed by head

• Minimizing mounting time => Minimizing distance traversed by head

• 88 components of 39 types
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• Mounting in 3 stages

• 1st batch: 52 components of 14 types

• 2nd batch: 19 components of 13 types

• 3rd batch: 17 components of 12 types

Formulation
m feeders, F1 , F2,…, Fm

n components,

p types, T1, T2,…, Tp

Feeder allocation: a 1 if Tj is assigned to Fi

0 otherwise

Mounting sequence π = (π1, π2,.……., π3) is permutation of 1, 2,….,n

Distance covered by machine head = f (π, a)

Our optimization problem: find (π*, a*) such that f (π*, a*) = minπ,a f(π,a)
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This problem of minimizing doesn’t find into a standard model hence we divide it into two parts

1. Mounting sequence π fixed, f (π, a) is function of a⇒ Assignment problem

2. Feeder allocation a fixed, f (π, a) is function of π⇒ Travelling salesman problem

Travelling salesman problem (TSP)

C1, C2, …, Cn denote the component locations

Imagine locations MRP, RP, C1, C2, …, Cn as cities and machine as salesman

The cost of travelling between any two cities is given as

c(MRP, B) = -M + d(MRP, RP), if B=RP

M, otherwise

M= large positive number

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d(P1, P2) = Euclidian distance between two points in the two dimensional plane representing P1 and P2

c(RP, Ck) = d(RP, Fi) + d(Fi , Ck) if type assigned to Fi is that of Ck,

c(Ck, Cl)= d(Ck, Fi) + d(Fi , Cl) if type assigned to Fi is that of Cl,

for k ≠ l, c(Ck, Ck )= M and c(Ck, MRP) = d(Ck, MRP), k = 1, 2,…., n

Problem TSP is to find a π* such that

f(π*, a) = minπ f(π,a)

Assignment Problem (AP)

Assumption: Strips of components of same type will be loaded only in one of the feeders.

aij is the number of feeders in which strips of type Tj are loaded.

⇒ Constraint =∑𝑚
𝑖=1 𝑎𝑖𝑗=1, j= 1, 2,…, p

Here mounting sequence π is fixed.

Let t(k) denote the type of component Ck

To mount the component Cπ1 the head moves from MRP to RP, RP to the feeder containing type t(π1)
and from that feeder to location of Cπ1

Let a denote the assignment.

The distance travelled by the head to mount Cπ1 is given by

d(MRP, RP) + ∑𝑚 𝑚
𝑖=1 𝑎𝑖𝑡(π1)𝑑(𝑅𝑃, 𝐹𝑖) +∑𝑖=1 𝑎𝑖𝑡(π1)𝑑(𝐹𝑖,Cπ1)

Next, to mount Cπ2, the distance travelled by head from Cπ1 to Cπ2 is given by

∑𝑚 𝑚
𝑖=1 𝑎𝑖𝑡(π2)𝑑(Cπ1, 𝐹𝑖) +∑𝑖=1 𝑎𝑖𝑡(π2)𝑑(𝐹𝑖,Cπ2)

Hence we can write

f(π,a) = d(MRP, RP) + ∑𝑚

𝑖=1 𝑎𝑖𝑡(π1) [𝑑(𝑅𝑃,Fi) + d (𝐹𝑖,Cπ1)]

+ ∑𝑚
𝑖=1 𝑎𝑖𝑡(π2) [𝑑(Cπ1,Fi) + d (𝐹𝑖,Cπ2)]

+ ∑𝑚
𝑖=1 𝑎𝑖𝑡(π𝑛) [𝑑(Cπ𝑛 − 1,Fi) + d (𝐹𝑖,Cπ𝑛)]
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+ d (Cπ𝑛, 𝑀𝑅𝑃)]

= d (𝑀𝑅𝑃, 𝑅𝑃) + d (Cπ𝑛,MR𝑃) + ∑𝑖 ∑𝑗 𝑎𝑖𝑗 c̅𝑖𝑗

Clearly, for fixed π, f (π, a) is a linear function of the entries in the matrix a specifying the assignment of
component types to feeders. Hence, for fixed π,

Problem AP is to find a = (aij) to:

mina f(π,a)

subject to

∑𝑚
𝑖=1 𝑎𝑖𝑗 = 1, 𝑗 = 1, 2, … , 𝑝

∑𝑘𝑗=1 𝑎𝑖𝑗 ≤ 1, 𝑗 = 1, 2, … , 𝑚

aij’s are 0 or 1

This is an assignment problem.

The Heuristic
Start with a mounting sequence π0 and determine feeder allocation a1 by solving AP with π= π0

Keeping a1 fixed, solve TSP to get an optimal sequence π1

Then, with π1 fixed, solve AP and obtain optimal feeder allocation a2

Next, with a2 fixed, once again solve TSP

we have f(π0, a1) ≥ f(π1, a1) ≥ f(π1, a2) ≥…..

This process of solving TSP and AP alternatively is continued until there is no further reduction in the
distance

Obviously, this process ends in a finite number of steps leading to a local optimal solution to the
problem.

APPLICATION
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Effectiveness of heuristic depends on the choice of initial mounting sequence

Ex. Initial mounting sequence: π0 = (1, 4, 6, 2, 5, 7, 3)

1, 4, 6 are type A components

2, 5, 7 are type B components

Applications used to solve problem:

1) Quant Systems (QS) package and

2) PASCAL

Consider Batch 1

f(π0,a0) = 12912 mm

Keeping π0 fixed solve AP to get a1

Keeping a1 fixed solve TSP to get π1

f(π1,a1) = 11058 mm

12912−11058
Wastage of time = × 100 = 16.76%
11058

Impact of changing initial sequence

Approach: Ignore the feeder locations and treat the problem as an ordinary travelling salesman problem
with distance defined as the Euclidean distance between them and solve for the initial sequence.

Sequence σ0 obtained using TSP with C1, C2,…., C52 as cities and Euclidian distances between them as
costs

This TSP was symmetric and hence was solved using Vogelnant package

Solution sequence was σ0, b1, σ1 , b2 = b1

f(σ1 ,b1) = 11055 mm

12912−11055
Wastage of time = 11058
× 100 = 16.79%
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RESULTS OF COMBINATORIAL OPTIMIZATION

Software Development
Till now, the problem has been modelled and a solution method has been proposed. However, in order
to get the optimal solution, we need a software application to simulate the process as doing it manually
would be very tedious. Hence, software development is an equally important of the whole process.

We need a package that takes minimum and simple inputs from the user and produces a final solution
without any further interaction from the user. Here a software tool called PCBSoft which does just that.
The software takes inputs from the user, executes the package and once the solution is obtained, it
prompts the user to pick up the solution.
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The user provides inputs like number of components, number of feeders, feeder coordinates, etc. as
depicted below.

The package that will solve the programming problem should fulfil the following requirements:

• Read the input data by the user

• Construct the sequence Allocation Problems (APs) and Travelling Salesman Problems (TSPs)
• Develop an interface program with professional OR package to solve these APs and TSPs
• Evaluate the package in each iteration and keep a check on the exit criterion
• Provide final solution to the user
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Further Scope
Using two different heads

We can use two separate heads for the feeder area and the mounting area. This way, the head does not
have to move all the way back to the feeders every time to pick up the components. And since the
headers are working in two separate areas, there are no chances of clashes between the two heads.

Application in warehouses

The process described in this paper can be used in warehouses of various e-commerce websites like
Flipkart, Amazon, etc. In such warehouses, a huge volume of goods are to be placed from the shelves to
the delivery trucks from where they are shipped to the respective customers. Similar types of goods can
be placed in one feeder from where the head picks up the goods and places it in delivery trucks meant
for their respective delivery locations.