PURPOSE: To enhance the productivity of a chip mounting operation on a board without lowering the operating efficiency of an apparatus so much by a method wherein, when a suction detector detects that a transfer head has failed to pick up a chip, a subsequent transfer head performs a recovery operation and mounts the chip on the head.

CONSTITUTION: When a suction detector 11 detects that a transfer head B has failed to pick up a chip 9a, a component feeder 10 feeds a next chip 9a to a picking-up position in the U-direction, and a subsequent transfer head C picks up the chip 9a and mounts it on a board. When any transfer head fails to pick up a chip, a subsequent transfer head picks up the chip and performs a recovery operation. During this time, the component feeder 10 for which a picking-up mistake has been made is not moved to the transverse direction and is kept stopped. Consequently, since the time to move the component feeder 10 to the transverse direction is not required, the operating efficiency of an apparatus is not lowered.