US 12,229,486 B2
Method for determining set-up families for a pick-and-place line for populating circuit boards with electronic components
Alexander Pfaffinger, Munich (DE); and Christian Royer, Ottobrunn (DE)
Assigned to Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, Munich (DE)
Appl. No. 17/440,307
Filed by Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, Munich (DE)
PCT Filed Mar. 25, 2019, PCT No. PCT/EP2019/057383
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Sep. 17, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/192881, PCT Pub. Date Oct. 1, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2022/0147685 A1, May 12, 2022
Int. Cl. G06F 30/392 (2020.01); G06F 30/398 (2020.01); H05K 13/08 (2006.01)
CPC G06F 30/392 (2020.01) [G06F 30/398 (2020.01); H05K 13/0857 (2018.08)] 11 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for determining set-up families for a pick-and-place line for populating circuit boards with electronic components of one or more component types, wherein the method comprises:
detecting a predetermined or predeterminable number of set-up families,
wherein a set-up family is defined as a quantity of circuit boards that can be populated on a pick-and-place line without changing the quantity of component types that are kept ready for population on the pick-and-place line;
wherein
an assignment of circuit boards to be distributed to the detected number of set-up families is optimized by integer linear programming in such a way that the sum of the numbers of component types per set-up family is minimized, and
populating the circuit boards in the set-up family assigned to them.