Extreme ultraviolet mask surface cleaning effects on lithography process performance

Extreme UV (EUV) masks are expected to undergo cleaning processes in order to maintain the lifetimes necessary for high volume manufacturing. For this study, the impact of repetitive cleaning of EUV masks on imaging performance is evaluated. Two high quality industry standard EUV masks are used, with one of the masks undergoing repeated cleaning and the other one kept as a reference. Lithographic performance, in terms of process window analysis and line edge roughness, was monitored after every two cleans and was compared to the reference mask performance. Surface analysis by atomic force microscopy did not show changes in the midspatial frequency roughness measured after each clean. After a total of eight cleans, minimal degradation is observed in the lithographic performance of the mask. From these observations, the authors conclude that the cleaning cycles completed thus far did not damage the mask multilayer or the absorber structures. The cleaning cycles will be continued until significant loss in imaging fidelity is found. © 2010 American Vacuum Society

Business Process Reengineering and It Impact on the Performance of Manufacturing Firms in Nigeria: An Empirical Evaluation

The paper posits that Business Process Reengineering is the radical redesign and rethinking of processes’ of business to achieve critical improvement desired in quality and performance. Business process reengineering advocates that firms go back to the foundation and reexamine their very roots. It focuses on the processes and not on people or tasks and does not believe in little success; rather it aims at total reinvention of the entire system. Relevant data were reviewed using secondary method of data collection while questionnaire was design for Top and Middle level Management Staff of the manufacturing firms. The data was subjected to statistical analysis and the result clearly showed that Business Process Reengineering impact positively on the performance of Manufacturing Firms in Nigeria as BPR help in eliminating non essential activities and as well enhances the quality of product produce in manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Firms’ vital point is on well-built and motivated leadership for the benefit of the entire organizational system. Current realities, such as changes, competition and the desire of customers, point to the direction that the developing organizations may never get to the place of development if they attempt to follow old ways of doing business. This paper argued that there is need now like never before, to re-examine the path taking so far by developing firms toward improving the performance of their business. Keywords: Business, Process, Reengineering, Business Reengineering, Firm Performance

The Power of Six Sigma Tool for Defect Reduction: Real Case from the Industrial Sector in Saudi Arabia

Achieving the highest levels of quality is the main target for all companies in all sectors. The aspect of the highest quality differs from organization to another. It could mean exceeding customers` expectations, speed of delivery, feasibility, product quality, reduce total cost, or minimizing the total defects in processes/services. Six Sigma is practical work to get error-free business performance. One of the Six Sigma’s distinctive approaches to process and quality improvement is DAMIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and control). DAMIC model refers to five interconnected stages that systematically help organizations to solve problems and improve their processes. This work illustrated applying DAMIC model in the industrial sector. The data of this case obtained from a leading manufacturing company based on Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Statistical analysis has been applied using EViews7 and SPSS25. A Cause-and-Effect diagram has been proposed. Whereas correction and improvement actions have been suggested by the quality team of the company

PENGARUH IMPLEMENTASI TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT TERHADAP KINERJA KARYAWAN BAGIAN DISTRIBUSI WILAYAH II PADA PT. PETROKIMIA GRESIK

Globalization period has created busineess competitif while pushing manufacturing industries to produce high quality goods according to the customer’s desire. Total quality management’s approach is suitable for manufacturing industries to respond their challenge. Total Quality Management (TQM) is an approach to maximize the competitiveness of organizations through a focus on customers, continuous improvement of products, services, labor, and environmental processes. This research empirically investigated the influence of TQM’s dimension with focus on customer, continious process improvement, and total involment towards employees’ performance. The research was conducted at division Distribution Region II of PT. Petrokimia Gresik with respondents consisting of 33 employees. Analysis used to answer the hypothesis was multiple regression. The result showed that focus on customer and continious process improvement have no effect on the employees’ performance. Among the three dimensions, only total involvement has effect on the employees’ performance. Key words: Total Quality Management (TQM), focus on customer, continuous process improvement, total involvement, employee performanc

Does interaction between TQM practices and knowledge management processes enhance the innovation performance?

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of applying total quality management (TQM) on enhancing knowledge management processes. It also examine the relationship between knowledge management and innovation performance in the Malaysian manufacturing sector. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a survey method to test the formulated hypotheses. Therefore, the adopted questionnaire was used as an instrument to collect the needed data. The population of the study consisted of 800 big and medium manufacturing companies listed in Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (2012). Findings: The results of this paper support a positive and significant impact of TQM practice on knowledge management processes. Furthermore, the relationship between knowledge management and innovation performance has been a proved. However, further analysis on dimension level indicates that knowledge acquisition failed to show significant relationship with innovation performance Originality/value: This study addresses one of the recent issues within the Malaysian context of becoming a developed nation, which is innovation performance, specifically for manufacturing companies. To do so, the overlapping relationships among TQM practices, knowledge management, and innovation performance have been tested

ANALISIS PENGARUH TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT TERHADAP KINERJA MANAJERIAL PADA PT. ARISAMANDIRI PRATAMA DI KOTA DEMAK

This study aims to examine the influence of Total Quality Management (TQM) toward managerial performance. With the increasingly widespread use of TQM in the business world, many companies grow rapidly and be able to compete in the market. According to Gaspersz, TQM is defined as a way of improving performance continuously (continuous performance improvement) at each level of operations or processes, in all functional areas of an organization with the use of all human and capital resources available. This study was conducted using a survey of middle-class manager at PT. Arisamandiri Pratama, a manufacturing company, and then analyzed using regression analysis. This study analyzed whether there was an effect on customer focus, obsession toward quality, teamwork, and employee involvement and empowerment on managerial performance. The results showed that the only variable which shows significant positive effect is the teamwork variable, while the other variables had no significant effect. In a manufacturing company, teamwork is the subject of work in order to ensure the company's production levels maintained, and even able to increase. With manager closeness to one another, their task can be solved immediately. While focusing on customers which actually gave negative effect rejected because PT. Arisamandiri Pratama’s most of the activities are just assembling the items ordered from other companies. They only get orders from other companies to manufacture goods. Therefore, the company may not pay much attention to customers and better kept focusing on production activities

The impacts of carbon emissions on global manufacturing value chain relocation: Theoretical and empirical development of a meso-level model

As a stark contrast to the diminishing media profile of the UN climate change talks, the global manufacturers appear to have become more carbon aware than ever before. Carbon audits have been carried out within many corporations to assess the carbon intensity of production processes. This is partly to address cost issues of the present (i.e. the recent rise in fossil fuel prices) and of the future (e.g. new carbon related taxes and trade tariffs). Moreover, the adoption of low carbon, clean manufacturing processes has become an increasingly prominent part of branding for many products, which could affect market share and business performance in ways that go beyond questions of cost competitiveness. How will this carbon awareness affect the configuration of the value chains of global manufacturing? Will the individual manufacturers’ decisions lead to an effective reduction of total carbon emissions at the global value chain scale? Our paper aims to answer these questions through developing a theoretical model and testing it empirically through case studies of global value chains. The model accounts explicitly costs of energy, carbon, other intermediate inputs and primary inputs in the production and transport of each component, product assembly and delivery to the market. Much work has been done on the value chain location problem – e.g. on the production unbundling among different countries from a macro-economic perspective, or on operations management at the microscopic or individual manufacturer level. It is only until recently that the economic and technology aspects have been combined in the study of global value chains (for example in the paper by Baldwin and Venables in last year’s ERSA Congress). The appropriate spatial scale for our research questions would appear to be at a meso-level: i.e. the model goes beyond the micro-level operational analysis of a single plant to cover the entire value chain for a given product, but does not cover the full interactions at the macro level. This perspective is relatively rare in the literature and provides a tool that connects the micro level and macro level perspectives.

IN-SITU CHARACTERIZATION OF SURFACE QUALITY IN γ-TiAl AEROSPACE ALLOY MACHINING

The functional performance of critical aerospace components such as low-pressure turbine blades is highly dependent on both the material property and machining induced surface integrity. Many resources have been invested in developing novel metallic, ceramic, and composite materials, such as gamma-titanium aluminide (γ-TiAl), capable of improved product and process performance. However, while γ-TiAl is known for its excellent performance in high-temperature operating environments, it lacks the manufacturing science necessary to process them efficiently under manufacturing-specific thermomechanical regimes. Current finish machining efforts have resulted in poor surface integrity of the machined component with defects such as surface cracks, deformed lamellae, and strain hardening. This study adopted a novel in-situ high-speed characterization testbed to investigate the finish machining of titanium aluminide alloys under a dry cutting condition to address these challenges. The research findings provided insight into material response, good cutting parameter boundaries, process physics, crack initiation, and crack propagation mechanism. The workpiece sub-surface deformations were observed using a high-speed camera and optical microscope setup, providing insights into chip formation and surface morphology. Post-mortem analysis of the surface cracking modes and fracture depths estimation were recorded with the use of an upright microscope and scanning white light interferometry, In addition, a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) quality monitoring technique based on acoustic emission (AE) signals, wavelet transform, and deep neural networks (DNN) was developed to achieve a real-time total volume crack monitoring capability. This approach showed good classification accuracy of 80.83% using scalogram images, in-situ experimental data, and a VGG-19 pre-trained neural network, thereby establishing the significant potential for real-time quality monitoring in manufacturing processes. The findings from this present study set the tone for creating a digital process twin (DPT) framework capable of obtaining more aggressive yet reliable manufacturing parameters and monitoring techniques for processing turbine alloys and improving industry manufacturing performance and energy efficiency

Innovative capabilities, operations priorities and corporate performance in manufacturing firms

The purpose of this paper is to explore the linkage between innovative capabilities and operations priorities and corporate performance and try to answer the question of how innovative capabilities support a manufacturing firm’s operations priorities and corporate performance. By using survey data from 184 manufacturing firms, firms are clustered according to their innovative capabilities. These clusters are explored in terms of operations priorities and corporate performance. The findings substantiate that manufacturing firms can be clustered according to their innovative capabilities. Each innovation cluster adopts and develops different operations priorities and they attain diverse financial performance levels implying that there are alternative ways to compete in the market even within the same industry. However, each alternative strategy provides diverse levels of benefits. The findings demonstrate further that high performing firms compete effectively on multiple operations priorities simultaneously. Hence, firms need to excel in multiple priorities and innovation types in their market

Effects of innovation types on firm performance

Innovation is broadly seen as an essential component of competitiveness, embedded in the organizational structures, processes, products, and services within a firm. The objective of this paper is to explore the effects of the organizational, process, product, and marketing innovations on the different aspects of firm performance, including innovative, production, market, and financial performances, based on an empirical study covering 184 manufacturing firms in Turkey. A theoretical framework is empirically tested identifying the relationships amid innovations and firm performance through an integrated innovation-performance analysis. The results reveal the positive effects of innovations on firm performance in manufacturing industries