Introducing pull methodologies in a semiconductor fab

Semiconductor manufacturing is a highly complex and re-entrant process. In a fabrication facility, hundreds of decisions are made during a production shift regarding how shared tool capacity will be prioritized. These decisions contribute to how balanced or unbalanced the manufacturing line will be. Characteristics of an unbalanced line are large WIP bubbles, long queue times, and expediting. A balanced line has less WIP bubbles, shorter queues, and WIP is positioned at all points throughout the line to be in position to meet the demand forecasted. This thesis focuses on work performed at Intel's Fab 23 to improve the process for assigning production priorities through the introduction of pull methodologies. Existing processes and tools were studied, and an improved methodology and decision-support tool was developed to aid operations managers in driving towards a balanced line. An experiment was also designed and executed in production to test the methods and tools developed. Target cycle time data was used along with throughput goals to construct a target inventory profile throughout the line. Actual inventory was then compared to the ideal "balanced" profile to determine where WIP deficits and surpluses existed.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Connally, Jason Walker

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stephen Graves and Daniel Whitney.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Mechanical Engineering.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34834

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34834