TY - GEN
T1 - The effectiveness of variability reduction in decreasing wafer fabrication cycle time
AU - Tirkel, Israel
PY - 2013/12/1
Y1 - 2013/12/1
N2 - Fab operations management strives to decrease cycle-time (CT) for driving low inventory, improved quality, short time-to-market and lower cost. This work studies factors contributing to production variability, and evaluates the variability's influence on CT. It relies on queueing networks, CT and variability approximations, operational curve modeling, and common practice. It demonstrates that increasing variability drives longer CT at a growing pace, and has a larger effect on CT than utilization. Growing machine inventory weakens the impact of utilization on CT and almost eliminates it at high inventory, while the impact of variability on CT remains significant. Decline of machine availability prolongs CT at a growing pace, and is affected by variability more than utilization. Overall the primary factor of production variability is attributed to machine availability, and specifically to repair time. Reducing variability for achieving decreased CT is less costly and more effective than reducing machine utilization or increasing capacity.
AB - Fab operations management strives to decrease cycle-time (CT) for driving low inventory, improved quality, short time-to-market and lower cost. This work studies factors contributing to production variability, and evaluates the variability's influence on CT. It relies on queueing networks, CT and variability approximations, operational curve modeling, and common practice. It demonstrates that increasing variability drives longer CT at a growing pace, and has a larger effect on CT than utilization. Growing machine inventory weakens the impact of utilization on CT and almost eliminates it at high inventory, while the impact of variability on CT remains significant. Decline of machine availability prolongs CT at a growing pace, and is affected by variability more than utilization. Overall the primary factor of production variability is attributed to machine availability, and specifically to repair time. Reducing variability for achieving decreased CT is less costly and more effective than reducing machine utilization or increasing capacity.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84894194500&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/WSC.2013.6721739
DO - 10.1109/WSC.2013.6721739
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84894194500
SN - 9781479939503
T3 - Proceedings of the 2013 Winter Simulation Conference - Simulation: Making Decisions in a Complex World, WSC 2013
SP - 3796
EP - 3805
BT - Proceedings of the 2013 Winter Simulation Conference - Simulation
T2 - 2013 43rd Winter Simulation Conference - Simulation: Making Decisions in a Complex World, WSC 2013
Y2 - 8 December 2013 through 11 December 2013
ER -