Modelling the operations of a component placement machine with rotational turret and stationary component magazine

Two major problems faced in the automated assembly of printed circuit boards are the determination of a component placement sequence and the internal arrangement of the component tapes in the feeder mechanism. The forms of these problems depend mainly on the physical design of the placement machine. The definition and solution of these optimization problems are attempted by many researchers and it is possible to find lots of relevant papers in the literature. However, most of these studies are concentrated on certain machine designs. In this study, the focus is on a particular machine type that has a rotational turret and a stationary component magazine. So far, this type of machine has received little attention among the researchers. The definition of the placement sequencing and feeder configuration problems are given and solution procedures are suggested. The performance of the suggested procedures are tested on real and randomly generated PCB assembly data.