PreAmp—a Pre-competitive Project in Intelligent Manufacturing Technology: an Architecture to Demonstrate Concurrent Engineering and Information Sharing

Abstract

Pre-competitive research and development is one method of examining industry-wide concerns and determining future directions It disperses the cost and risk of such projects across many companies. The subject of this paper is one such project in the area of design and manufacturing of printed circuit assemblies (PCAs) known as PreAmp The paper discusses the PreAmp origin, its goals, and technology issues to be assessed by the program. It continues with an in-depth discussion of the PreAmp system architecture and the components of that architecture. The paper highlights knowledge acquisition and rule definition architecture Discussion continues with system components that address new concepts in concurrent engineering (e.g. manufacturing resource editor and producibility advisor). The paper concludes with a summary of how PreAmp supports concurrent engineering and a schedule of system prototypes and pilots.