Optimization of printed circuit board design using distributed decision-making systems

Organizations in today´s business environment often participate in short term alliances to manufacture sophisticated products. There are often a large number of potential designs for such products and no elementary technique for creating an optimal design. As a result, it is often necessary to utilize some form of computer algorithm to obtain a nearly optimal design. A variety of such algorithms exist including generic ones such as random search and genetic algorithms as well as application-specific algorithms. Any optimization algorithm will require information from a number of databases maintained by the individual companies in the alliance. Hence, the optimization is distributed over a wide area network of computers. The paper examines optimization algorithms which may be used to design printed circuit boards in this distributed manufacturing environment.