Masters Abstracts (1993)

ALEXANDER, MATHEW
(September 1993)

Email: Not Available

Manufacturing Cost Analysis of Surface Mount PCB Design

In today's manufacturing, there is continuous demand for product flexibility and shorter product throughput time. Along with this, the need arises to speed-up the production- planning and cost estimating activities. Consequentially, the traditional gap between the designer who designs new products and the estimator who evaluates the financial consequences of the design is fading. Cost optimization is being integrated with the design process. Therefore, the designer will have to take more responsibility for the cost of the product at the design stage itself and also be in a position to answer more questions about the cost estimation process. The literature survey indicates that there is a need for new design tools that consider the financial impact of a decision made during the design process.

The designer does not have the experience or may not have the necessary skill to estimate the cost of a product at the design stage. Therefore, there is a need to develop new tools that will give the designer a quick and reasonably accurate estimate of the financial consequences of a design decision. This research designed and developed a prototype cost estimation tool for the surface mount printed circuit board designer by integrating Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) and cost estimation techniques using a knowledge based frame work. The cost advisor considers the assembly of single sided surface mount printed circuit boards. The applicable cost models were identified, developed, and embedded in software. The system was developed using object oriented programming concepts in C++. A substantial part of the cost advisor is 'adaptable', i.e., the user can change the rules used to develop a macro-process plan without any knowledge of computer programming or use different cost models by introducing them as functional modules.