Title: Material-handling-system-based input control policy for wafer fabrication

Authors: Ming Chen; Subhash C. Sarin

Addresses: Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg Virginia 24060, USA ' Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg Virginia 24060, USA

Abstract: In this paper, a new input control strategy is proposed for wafer fabrication facilities. This strategy is an adaptation of workload regulating and CONWIP, and comprises of two sequential steps: 1) determination of operational lot sizes; 2) release of lots based on a material handling system-based CONLOAD approach. We show the superiority of our strategy over a CONWIP-based policy via simulation of a real-life wafer fab. An approach for determining target workload levels for the proposed strategy is also presented.

Keywords: input control; lot sizing; CONWIP; shop floor control; wafer fabrication; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPS.2018.095456

International Journal of Planning and Scheduling, 2018 Vol.2 No.4, pp.311 - 330

Received: 21 Jul 2017
Accepted: 11 Apr 2018

Published online: 04 Oct 2018 *

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