Provided is an electronic component supply system determining the types of electronic components installed on component pallets at a time when the electronic components are installed on the component pallets for installation, which determines the types of the electronic components installed on the component pallets based on planned multiple jobs continuously performed by multiple electronic component mounting machines to which the component pallets are attached and an execution order for the jobs such that the number of the component pallets exchanged during job switching is minimized.

Necessary unit data indicative of the type and number of equipment units used in component mounting operation is obtained on the basis of production plan data, mounting data, and component library for each of production lots in advance. New allocation processing for allocating an equipment unit necessary for production execution of a new production lot to be newly produced on an electronic component mounting line for the new production lot on the basis of the necessary unit data is executed, and component reservation processing for registering the allocation result as the inventory data is conducted by a unit reservation unit.

A method for equipping printed circuit boards on an equipping machine, the printed circuit boards being of a first length, and the equipping machine being realized to equip printed circuit boards of a second length, the second length being more than twice as great as the first length. The equipping machine has an input section (1) and an equipping section (2), the equipping section (2) being disposed after the input section (1) in a direction of conveyance (F) of the printed circuit boards, disposed after the input section (1) in a direction of conveyance of the printed circuit boards, the printed circuit boards of the first length and the printed circuit boards of the second length being transportable, in their longitudinal direction, from the input section (1) into the equipping station (2).

To populate printed circuit boards by means of a pick.sub.rand-place line, multiple set-ups, each having an associated set-up family, are formed. A number of component types is associated with each set-up and a number of printed circuit board types is associated with each associated setup family, such that a printed circuit board of a printed circuit board type in a set-up family can be populated on the pick-and-place line using components of the component types associated with the set-up. A setting-up table comprising a stock of components of a component type in a set-up can be provided on the pick-and-place line. A method for populating the printed circuit boards includes the steps of recording printed circuit board types, from which printed circuit boards are to be populated with components of associated component types, and associating recorded printed circuit board types with set-up families.

An optimization device, that optimizes a process procedure for each of a plurality of process machines in a substrate process system in which circuit substrates can be transported on two paths, including a first process for setting a process procedure for each of the process machines so as to optimize a total process time that is the sum of a process time for each of the plurality of process machines for a circuit substrate being transported on one of the two paths, and a process time for each of the plurality of process machines for a circuit substrate being transported on the other of the two paths; and a second process for setting a process procedure for each of the process machines so as to optimize the process times.

Populating printed circuit boards with components on a pick-and-place variant set-up is provided. Each set-up includes a number of components, stocks of which are brought to setting-up tables on the pick-and-place line, and a set-up family is associated with each set-up, the family system, a fixed set-up and multiple printed circuit board types which can be populated using the set-up. The fixed set-up is optimized with respect to a weighted parameter, before determining, by means of a simulation, how well variant set-ups, with which the remaining components of predefined pick-and-place orders are associated, can be implemented on the setting-up tables and brought to the pick-and-place line. The quality of each different weighting is determined in order to determine an optimized weighting.

A production management system is configured so as to make it possible to produce component mounting boards to the same specifications in two lanes of a component mounting machine using one set of NC data by arranging feeders of two feeder set bases in the same manner and setting the mounting order of the components to the circuit boards in the two lanes to be the same in a same-direction production mode in which circuit boards are conveyed in the same front/back direction in the two lanes. In addition, the arrangement of the feeders and the mounting order of the components are optimized so that the difference in production times in the two lanes in the same-direction production mode is minimized.

A method of determining disposition of a component supply unit including a component reel obtained by winding a component accommodating tape accommodating a component and a tape feeder that supplies the component accommodating tape drawn out from the component reel, for determining component supply unit disposition in which the component supply unit is disposed in a holding unit that holds the component supply unit, includes acquiring component supply unit information including information on the number of the component reel and constraint condition information including information related to a layout that is capable of being selected when the component supply unit is disposed in the holding unit, and determining the component supply unit disposition, based on the constraint condition information and the information on the number of the component reel.

An electronic component mounting system stores: manufacturing plan data for each manufacturing lot; unit management data including use permission information indicating a use permission status of an equipment unit; and inventory data indicating a stock status of the equipment units. In a unit reservation processing, new allocation processing is performed for allocating an equipment unit necessary for manufacture of a new manufacturing lot to an equipment unit for a new manufacturing lot, and an allocation result is registered. The system determines whether an equipment unit of an allocation subject in the new allocation processing can be allocated to an equipment unit for the new manufacturing lot by referring to use permission information of the equipment unit, and if the equipment unit is determined as being usable, the unit reservation processing is performed.

A system including multiple inspection machines and an NG board discharge machine which moves an NG board to a checking position visible to a worker. The system acquires positional information of a circuit board during conveyance, and stores the NG board by associating a work result for the NG board with the positional information. In this manner, the positional information of the NG board is acquired. Based on the positional information, it is determined whether or not the circuit board conveyed to the NG board discharge machine is the NG board. When the circuit board conveyed to the NG board discharge machine is the NG board, a checking-purpose working machine discharges the NG board to the checking position.