Patent ID: 7133733

Claim:
A design support system for supporting design of a manufacturing line for an electronic device where the manufacturing line is constituted by combination of a plurality of element types of manufacturing cells, said system comprising: an element type database for storing information about said element types beforehand; an indication section which indicates to an operator in a selectable manner said element types stored in said element type database; a selection section enabling selection of arbitrary element types to be used for constituting said manufacturing line from among said element types indicated by said indication section; an element type determination section for determining said element types or specifications of said element types based on said element types selected by said selection section; a manufacturing line information preparation section for preparing information about said manufacturing line by acquiring information about said element types stored in said element type database based on said element types selected by said selection section; and an output section outputting information about said manufacturing line prepared by said manufacturing line information preparation section, wherein said manufacturing line information preparation section prepares information about said manufacturing line based on said element types or said specifications of said element types determined by said element type determination section, said element type database stores determination information in association with said element types, and said element type determination section determines said element types or specifications of said element types based on said determination information, and said determination information is at least one of a conditional expression which determines another element type, or a specification of another element type, both complying with the selected element type, which would otherwise be caused when a first element type has been selected, and an incidental expression having information to be used for preventing reflection of information about a specific constituent element or element type in response to the selected element type, which would otherwise be caused when a second element type has been selected.