A DECISION-SUPPORT TOOL FOR PRINTED-CIRCUIT BOARD ASSEMBLY

This paper presents a decision-support tool to aid electronics designers and engineers in quantifying design tradeoffs and predicting the time and cost of manufacturing printed circuit board (PCB) assemblies. Process activities are identified, quantified and costs allocated, based on the amount and type of activities used by the PCB assembly. The resulting cost data allow activities that incur substantial costs to be highlighted, allowing efforts to be concentrated on reducing these costs. A case example is presented to illustrate the application of the decision-support tool and activity charts developed.