Object-oriented knowledge-based computer-aided process planning system for bare circuit boards manufacturing

The manufacturing industry is time, quality and information driven. In the current highly competitive international marketplace, these factors are especially crucial to the electronics industry. In this paper, an object-oriented model of a computer-aided process planning (CAPP) system for the manufacturing of bare circuit boards is proposed. Process constraints and planning knowledge are all represented and modelled by respective constraints objects. The system is then implemented for the automatic process planning of double-sided circuit boards. The performance of the system is then compared with that of experienced process planners. The advantages in the use of the constraint and knowledge objects approach in a computer-aided process planning system are revealed.