If you could automate one part of your design workflow, what would it be? We are asking e14 in our Join, Share & Win Competition

The thing I would most like to automate out of existence is: Kitting parts to build new pcbs.

I make lots of pcbs, average > 20 per year. 

Each may have between 50 and 200 unique parts. The build process is:

Design - using pcb CAD

Make purchasing BOM - PCB CAD + Excel + VB app that groups parts together

Buy the bits

Using the pick list (created by more VB app that munches a BOM into a per side pick list

SPEND THE NEXT DAY COUNTING BITS OUT OF BAGS, TUBES, AND LITTLE DRAWERS INTO LITTLE POTS FROM WHERE THEY ARE PICKED TO GO ON THE BOARD

Stencil print solder paste onto bare pcbs

Reflow the board

That picking of parts is not automated at all - the time it takes is independent of the number of boards and mainly a function of the number of unique parts. Almost everything else is computer assisted but that picking process is grim. It isn't helped by the way some suppliers (and I do mean Farnell) put parts in bags folded over, done up with two bits of tape and then the label stuck over the tape and where th bag folds over. So you can't get to the bits without ripping the label in half !!!! (I'm getting quite cross about it now !!).

Anyway - automating that horrid process would improve my life. So far I've been developing better ways of keeping parts so they can be indexed and locate quickly but it isn't the total answer.

MK

the part where my boss is like: we need you to automate something.
then Im like which thing?
and theyre like every thing. 
then Im like this is a complex network of plcs, with known issues of bandwidth, network faults, inappropriate error handling, and it is in active use, to which the automation process could introduce new bugs, or delays. 
then they like ok automate it!
So then Im automating it.. and you know I learn every way it wont work first. 
and theyre like what taking so long?
I pressed an estop the other day, and literally nothing happened. So after body slamming mu co worker, to get them un hung up, from the electrical. they quit the next week.
so any way, I press all the fucking estops, one starts a 5 minute shutdown process. one kills the lights, and most of them do absolutely nothing. Mean while, my 8th try into a process logger which doesnt glitch the whole system is going well. 
but 2 of the 7 plcs have weird float data, way out of spec. Im thinking ok maybe I misinterpreted the data type. but eventually I figure out its not that, 2 of the 7 plcs are little endian,,, I had to write my own custom protocol analyzer, and in the process of doing that I assumed I was dyslexic, because I am, and borked the endianess, ....

well anyway I'd like to automate the part that convinces mgt this place is a *** show.  

the part where my boss is like: we need you to automate something.
then Im like which thing?
and theyre like every thing. 
then Im like this is a complex network of plcs, with known issues of bandwidth, network faults, inappropriate error handling, and it is in active use, to which the automation process could introduce new bugs, or delays. 
then they like ok automate it!
So then Im automating it.. and you know I learn every way it wont work first. 
and theyre like what taking so long?
I pressed an estop the other day, and literally nothing happened. So after body slamming mu co worker, to get them un hung up, from the electrical. they quit the next week.
so any way, I press all the fucking estops, one starts a 5 minute shutdown process. one kills the lights, and most of them do absolutely nothing. Mean while, my 8th try into a process logger which doesnt glitch the whole system is going well. 
but 2 of the 7 plcs have weird float data, way out of spec. Im thinking ok maybe I misinterpreted the data type. but eventually I figure out its not that, 2 of the 7 plcs are little endian,,, I had to write my own custom protocol analyzer, and in the process of doing that I assumed I was dyslexic, because I am, and borked the endianess, ....

well anyway I'd like to automate the part that convinces mgt this place is a *** show.