A framework for generating operational characteristic curves for semiconductor manufacturing systems using flexible and reusable discrete event simulations

This thesis proposes a framework for generating operating curves for semiconductor manufacturing facilities using a modular flexible discrete event simulation (DES) model embedded in an application that automates the design of experiments for the simulations. Typically, operating curves are generated using analytical queueing models that are difficult to implement and hence, can only be used for benchmarking purposes. Alternatively, DES models are more capable of capturing the complexities of a semiconductor manufacturing facility such as re-entrancy, rework and non-identical toolsets. However, traditional craft-based simulations require much time and resources. The proposed methodology aims to reduce this time by automatically calculating the parameters for experimentation and generating the simulation model. It proposes a novel method to more appropriately allocate simulation effort by selecting design points more relevant to the operating curve. The methodology was initially applied to a single toolset model and tested as a pilot case study using actual factory data. Overall, the resulting operating curves matched that of the actual data. Subsequently, the methodology was applied to a full semiconductor manufacturing facility, using datasets from the Semiconductor Wafer Manufacturing Data Format Specification. The automated framework was shown to generate the curves rapidly and comparisons against a number of queueing model equivalents showed that the DES curves were more accurate. The implications of this work mean that on deployment of the application, semiconductor manufacturers can quickly obtain an accurate operating curve of their factory that could be used to aid in capacity planning and enable better decision-making regarding allocation of resources

Automatic Generation Of Supply Chain Simulation Models From Scor Based Ontologies

In today\u27s economy of global markets, supply chain networks, supplier/customer relationship management and intense competition; decision makers are faced with a need to perform decision making using tools that do not accommodate the nature of the changing market. This research focuses on developing a methodology that addresses this need. The developed methodology provides supply chain decision makers with a tool to perform efficient decision making in stochastic, dynamic and distributed supply chain environments. The integrated methodology allows for informed decision making in a fast, sharable and easy to use format. The methodology was implemented by developing a stand alone tool that allows users to define a supply chain simulation model using SCOR based ontologies. The ontology includes the supply chain knowledge and the knowledge required to build a simulation model of the supply chain system. A simulation model is generated automatically from the ontology to provide the flexibility to model at various levels of details changing the model structure on the fly. The methodology implementation is demonstrated and evaluated through a retail oriented case study. When comparing the implementation using the developed methodology vs. a traditional simulation methodology approach, a significant reduction in definition and execution time was observed

Intelligent Simulation Modeling of a Flexible Manufacturing System with Automated Guided Vehicles

Although simulation is a very flexible and cost effective problem solving technique, it has been traditionally limited to building models which are merely descriptive of the system under study. Relatively new approaches combine improvement heuristics and artificial intelligence with simulation to provide prescriptive power in simulation modeling. This study demonstrates the synergy obtained by bringing together the "learning automata theory" and simulation analysis. Intelligent objects are embedded in the simulation model of a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS), in which Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) serve as the material handling system between four unique workcenters. The objective of the study is to find satisfactory AGV routing patterns along available paths to minimize the mean time spent by different kinds of parts in the system. System parameters such as different part routing and processing time requirements, arrivals distribution, number of palettes, available paths between workcenters, number and speed of AGVs can be defined by the user. The network of learning automata acts as the decision maker driving the simulation, and the FMS model acts as the training environment for the automata network; providing realistic, yet cost-effective and risk-free feedback. Object oriented design and implementation of the simulation model with a process oriented world view, graphical animation and visually interactive simulation (using GUI objects such as windows, menus, dialog boxes; mouse sensitive dynamic automaton trace charts and dynamic graphical statistical monitoring) are other issues dealt with in the study

Development of a measurement for technology learning process (TLP)

Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (AMTs) are widely used by manufacturing organisations all over the world. Unfortunately, the process of implementation of AMT projects has been unsatisfactory and sometimes led to total failure. In the literature, various reasons are brought forward for the deficiency of companies to deal with such technologies. Most cited reasons were managerial incompetence, organisational inertia and lack of and/or insufficient Technology Learning Process (TLP). Particularly, the Technology Learning Process (TLP) was widely recognised as a significant factor influencing technological change management. For instance, several authors believed that the failure of companies to manage technological change was due to the absence of effective TLP. Hence, studying and identifying the impact of TLP on the technological change management and on operations management is of real importance to reduce this rate of failure. In order to understand how TLP was implemented and what measures were used to determine the practice level of TLP, face-to-face interviews with experienced industrial project managers were held. Based on these interviews, this study developed 46 parameters in order to assess the practice level of TLP in Irish organisations. These parameters were classified into four levels including Basic Level, Average Level, Advanced Level, and World-Class level. To examine the impact of these parameters on the technological change management, postal and online questionnaires were designed and dispatched to all pharmaceutical and chemical firms in Ireland. This was a two-fold objective survey. The first objective was to verify the suitability of this set of parameters over a larger sample of pharmaceutical and chemical organisations. The second objective was to determine the level of TLP practice within the pharmaceutical and chemical firms in Ireland and to investigate the impact of each parameter of this set of parameters on the process of implementation of AMT projects and also on the organisation performance as a whole. The suitability of the proposed conceptual model on wide population was verified. The developed set of parameters was found not only to have significant impact on the process of AMT implementation but also have an influence on the organisation performance

Gestion dynamique des connaissances de maintenance pour des environnements de production de haute technologie à fort mix produit

The constant progress in electronic technology, the short commercial life of products, and the increasing diversity of customer demand are making the semiconductor industry a production environment constrained by the continuous change of product mix and technologies. In such environment, success depends on the ability to develop and industrialize new products in required competitive time while keeping a good level of cost, yield and cycle time criteria. These criteria can be ensured by high and sustainable availability of production capacity which needs appropriate maintenance policies in terms of diagnosis, supervision, planning and operating protocols. At the start of this study, the FMEA approach (analysis of failure modes, effects and criticality) was only mobilized to capitalize the expert’s knowledge for maintenance policies management. However, the evolving nature of the industrial context requires knowledge updating at appropriate frequencies in order to adapt the operational procedures to equipment and processes behavior changes.This thesis aims to show that the knowledge update can be organized by setting up an operational methodology combine both Bayesian networks and FMEA method. In this approach, existing knowledge and know-how skills are initially capitalized in terms of cause to effect links using the FMEA method in order to prioritize maintenance actions and prevent their consequences on the equipment, the product quality and personal safety. This knowledge and expertise are then used to develop unified operating procedures for expert’s knowledge and know-how sharing. The causal links stored in the FMEA are modeled in an operational Bayesian network (BN-O), in order to enable the assessment of maintenance actions effectiveness and, hence, the relevance of existing capitalized knowledge. In an uncertain and highly variable environment, the proper execution of procedures is measured using standards maintenance performance measurement indicators (MPM). Otherwise, the accuracy of existing knowledge can be assessed as a function of the O-BN model accuracy. Any drift of these criteria leads to learning a new unsupervised Bayesian network (U-BN) to discover new causal relations from historical data. The structural difference between O-BN (built using experts judgments) and U-BN (learned from data) highlights potential new knowledge that need to be analyzed and validated by experts to modify the existing FMEA and update associated maintenance procedures.The proposed methodology has been tested in a production workshop constrained by high product mix to demonstrate its ability to dynamically renew expert knowledge and improve the efficiency of maintenance actions. This experiment led to 30% decrease in failure occurrence due to inappropriate maintenance actions. This is certifying a better quality of knowledge modeled in the tools provided by this thesis.Le progrès constant des technologies électroniques, la courte durée de vie commerciale des produits, et la diversité croissante de la demande client font de l’industrie du semi-conducteur un environnement de production contraint par le changement continu des mix produits et des technologies. Dans un tel environnement, le succès dépend de la capacité à concevoir et à industrialiser de nouveaux produits rapidement tout en gardant un bon niveau de critères de coût, rendement et temps de cycle. Une haute disponibilité des capacités de production est assurée par des politiques de maintenance appropriées en termes de diagnostic, de supervision, de planification et des protocoles opératoires. Au démarrage de cette étude, l’approche AMDEC (analyse des modes de défaillance, leurs effets et de leur criticité) était seule mobilisée pour héberger les connaissances et le savoir-faire des experts. Néanmoins, la nature évolutive du contexte industriel requiert la mise à jour à des fréquences appropriées de ces connaissances pour adapter les procédures opérationnelles aux changements de comportements des équipements et des procédés. Cette thèse entend montrer que la mise à jour des connaissances peut être organisée en mettant en place une méthodologie opérationnelle basée sur les réseaux bayésiens et la méthode AMDEC. Dans cette approche, les connaissances et les savoir-faire existants sont tout d’abord capitalisés en termes des liens de cause à effet à l’aide de la méthode d’AMDEC pour prioriser les actions de maintenance et prévenir leurs conséquences sur l’équipement, le produit et la sécurité des personnels. Ces connaissances et savoir-faire sont ensuite utilisés pour concevoir des procédures opérationnelles standardisées permettant le partage des savoirs et savoir-faire des experts. Les liens causaux stockés dans l’AMDEC sont modélisés dans un réseau bayésien opérationnel (O-BN), afin de permettre l’évaluation d’efficacité des actions de maintenance et, par là même, la pertinence des connaissances existantes capitalisées. Dans un contexte incertain et très variable, l’exécution appropriée des procédures est mesurée à l’aide des indicateurs standards de performance de maintenance (MPM) et la précision des connaissances existantes en évaluant la précision de l’O-BN. Toute dérive de ces critères conduit à l'apprentissage d'un nouveau réseau bayésien non-supervisé (U-BN) pour découvrir de nouvelles relations causales à partir de données historiques. La différence structurelle entre O-BN et U-BN met en évidence de nouvelles connaissances potentielles qui sont validées par les experts afin de modifier l’AMDEC existante ainsi que les procédures de maintenance associées. La méthodologie proposée a été testée dans un des ateliers de production contraint par un haut mix de produits pour démontrer sa capacité à renouveler dynamiquement les connaissances d’experts et d'améliorer l'efficacité des actions de maintenance. Cette expérimentation a conduit à une diminution de 30% des reprises d’opérations de maintenance attestant une meilleure qualité des connaissances modélisées dans les outils fournis par cette thèse

Variantenmanagement in der Modellbildung und Simulation unter Verwendung des SES/MB Frameworks

Die vorliegende Arbeit leistet einen Beitrag zur Entwicklung von allgemeinen Methoden zum Variantenmanagement in der Modellbildung und Simulation bis auf die Ebene der Simulationsexperimente und zur automatisierten Ausführung von Simulationsexperimenten. Der Lösungsvorschlag basiert auf der modular-hierarchischen Modellbildung und dem System Entity Structure/Model Base Framework. Das Variantenmanagement umfasst die Phasen Variantenanalyse, -formalisierung, -implementierung und –generierung. Weiterhin wird ein Konzeptrahmen zum automatisierten Experimentieren erarbeitet.This thesis contributes to the development of general methods for variant management in modelling and simulation up to the simulation experiments’ level and their automated execution. The proposed solution is developed based on the modular-hierarchical modeling approach and the System Entity Structure/Model Base Framework. The variant management comprises the phases variant analysis, variant formalization, variant implementation and variant generation. Moreover, a framework for automated experimentation is proposed