Roy S. Freedman and Robert P. Frail

Definition of the Problem Domain Processplamirtg is an activity that is performed routinely by industrial engineers in order to schedule and allocate resources for equipment assembly. The planning activity consists of the following: Given a collection of electrical component parts of a printed circuit board together with its layout diagram, derive the sequence of operations required of a technician (or robot) for the correct assembly of the printed circuit board. The plans that result are called operations sheets. At Hazeltine, process planning is an industrial engineering activity that occurs after design and before assembly. In the initial stage of process planning, the industrial engineer carefully examines a parts list (obtained from the bill of materials file; see figure 1) and a detailed physical layout diagram (see figure 2), that shows the proper placement of the corresponding parts on the printed circuit board.