Read and follow guidelines in "the Cad library of the future" IPC-7351 for starters.
Historicly through hole components had a pin (pin1) as the reference point, surface mount components have where possible the device centre. When you place a component in the software it then has a x,y location. You require at least 2 fiducials on your design, when cre-ating the pick and place file make one of these fids the 0,0 for the data. The pick and place machine uses these fids to fix the location and rotation of the board when it is in the pick and place machine, and thus can determine the location of all parts.
Do not rely on tape and reals as the rotation can differ from manufacturer to manufacturer and from batch to batch from the same manufacturer. More IMPORTANT is making shure the pick and place component library rotations match exactly the rotations in your CAD libary, also component 0,0 points should match between the 2 libraries.
If using Cadstar add the attribute IS_SMD (Y) for surface mount components (and use this in your report file to filter the required part), this will allow you to cater for SMD devices with location holes, or intrusive reflowed PTH components.