The Development Of A Computer Aided Process Planning Tool For Electronics Manufacturing Education

In the 21 century, the rapidly evolving technological developments make educators constantly reassess the content of engineering curricula in the context of emerging fields. Therefore it is a must to create, apply, and evaluate innovative educational techniques and methods for the incorporation of these novel subjects into the engineering disciplines without compromising the cultivation of the traditional skills. In this case, Internet is rapidly being adopted in engineering education as a tool for enhancing the educational experience of students residing on campus as well as to expand the reach of unique programs beyond the local campus. In the last few years, increasing product complexity, decreasing component size, and using double sided boards have made Electronics Manufacturing (EM) assembly lines more difficult and the economic troubleshooting of EM defects is one of the main problems facing all manufacturers. Dispensing, placement and reflow steps have been relatively improved with fully automated, accurate assembly machines and the use of robots. Although the authors have made significant improvements, it has been shown that the outcomes of the automated line have not produced a high enough level of the reliable yield percentage yet. P ge 8.118.1 “Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2003, American Society for Engineering Education” The objective of this current development is to make a contribution towards these EM processes by creating an interactive E-Manufacturing system of circuit board defects so that the defects that necessitate rework operation can be detected through EM assembly line. This system is also used as an educational tool in undergraduate and graduate level automated manufacturing courses to make the users more knowledgeable about the cutting-edge industrial trouble-shooting techniques.