Graphics file generation for a computer-aided manual work station in the electronics manufacturing environment

Based on a standardized, product and production independent concept for factory automation, some general thoughts concerning the acquisition of operation, machine and quality data for manufacturing are presented, and the application of a printed circuit board (PCB) production preparation system as a part of the manufacturing design system is discussed. The necessity of automation of production preparation is based on a continuous flow of information in the manufacturing environment to reduce the throughput/cycle time, to reduce the set-up time and to have better product quality. The decrease of time in the different hierarchical layers of the production reference model, especially in the area of production preparation, can be used to develop tested, error-free, simulated and optimized product, process and machine describing data files