The component placement process of multi head gantry mount machine was analyzed. The optimization problem of placement process was decomposed to three sub problem of component grouping, component group picking and placing. The component arrangement in slots was a critical factor in solving the optimization problem of placement process of the multi-head gantry mount machine. Based on the analysis of practical engineering application, with the minimum move distance of arm as an objective, an optimization model of the component placement process of multi-head gantry mount machine was formulated. Combined with heuristic method and Genetic Algorithm (GA) method, the hybrid GA (HGA) was adopted to optimize the placement process. A two-dimensional real number coding method was proposed in the HGA. In the individual chromosome, the feeder number and slot number were used to describe the arrangement sequence and position of component types. By aiming at the proposed coding method, the improved order crossover and adaptive mutation were used, and a parallel structure was contained in the HGA. By integrating local search strategy, the component placement sequence and the feeder arrangement are optimized simultaneously. Through calculation examples and results comparison, it shows that this method can achieve optimization of the component placement process of multi-head gantry mount machine and improve the assembly efficiency.