Patent ID: 7395129

Claim:
An optimizing method that optimizes, using a computer, a component mounting order in which a mounter, equipped with a mounting head, picks up L components, L being no less than 2, from an array of component feeders that hold components, and mounts the components on a board, wherein the mounting head has, at maximum, L pickup nozzles attached thereto for picking up the components, and wherein a plurality of components, of which the mounting order is to be optimized, includes a plurality of types of components to be picked up using no less than 2 pickup nozzles of different types, the optimizing method comprising: determining a nozzle set, from a plurality of pickup nozzles, for mounting the plurality of components using a smallest possible number of tasks, where a nozzle set is a combination of pickup nozzles in which (i) only the types of the pickup nozzles and a number of the pickup nozzles to be attached to the mounting head are previously set and (ii) a correspondence between the types of the pickup nozzles and mounting positions of the pickup nozzles is not previously set, and where a task is a group of components to be mounted by one iteration of a repeated series of processes where the mounting head picks up, transports, and mounts the components; and determining an order of the array of component feeders and a component mounting order, while maintaining the determined nozzle set.