The criterion for an acceptable assembly of a surface-mounted printed circuit board is that leads of surface- mount components must have a minimum acceptable surface contact with their corresponding pads. The higher the minimum surface contact the more reliable the assembly. Most surface-mount component placement systems use a component-to-pad alignment technique for placement of surface-mount components. This alignment technique does not guarantee maximum lead-to-pad surface contact due to errors in leads and pads. In this paper, a lead-to-pad alignment technique for placement of surface-mount components is presented. © 1997 Taylor & Francis Ltd.