E-catalogue Library of Machines for Constructing Virtual Printed-circuit Assembly Lines

To easily and smoothly construct a virtual production line for a simulation of environmental performance, productivity and manufacturability, the use of a manufacturing machine e-catalogue library is proposed in this paper. A machine vender such as a machine tool maker and equipment provider registers an e-catalogue of his product to the library using a corresponding template. The designer of a production system constructs a virtual production line by selecting an adequate manufacturing machine's e-catalogue from the library. In this paper, this e-catalogue library concept is applied to the electric-power consumption simulation of a PCA (Printed Circuit Assembly) line. A PCA line consists of a solder paste printing machine, two or three electronic part mounters, reflow furnace and testing machine. Each machine's e-catalogue consists of descriptions not only for specifications but also for computational expressions according to the behavior of the machine. Using experimentally implemented e-catalogues, virtual PCA lines are configured for simulation of electric power consumptions. These virtual lines are configured as a multi agent system of machine agents which are generated based on a selected machine's e-catalogue.