The Role of Skill Upgrading in Manufacturing Performance

This section examines the industry-wide trend of upgrading the skills of production workers in the semiconductor industry. This analysis discusses the industry characteristics driving this trend, the human resource policies that support skill upgrades, and the payoffs associated with such upgrades. To provide a deeper understanding of the process of skill upgrading, two fabs from our sample are analyzed in detail. One fab is located in Japan (pseudonym Jfab) and the other fab is located in the U.S. (pseudonym USfab). As a central part of their manufacturing strategy, these fabs have emphasized the upskilling of operators particularly for equipment maintenance activities. Through human resource policies, both fabs have extended the breadth and depth of their employees\u27 skills (our definition of skill upgrading), particularly the skills of their operators and technicians. At the time of our visit, a manager at Jfab estimated that they were 95% self-sufficient in maintaining their own equipment rather than using the vendor. He explained, We don\u27t use vendor maintenance because it is very expensive and because our people are better at it than the vendors\u27 personnel. We end up teaching the employees of the vendors about their own equipment! A manager at USfab echoed these sentiments regarding vendors: Contracts are expensive and we can do better. USfab also has concentrated on upgrading the skills of its operators while it merged the operator and technician occupations into a production specialist position (a pseudonym). USfab\u27s production specialists now perform 90% of the basic preventative maintenance (e.g., daily checks, chamber cleans, PMs). For equipment maintenance tasks, these two fabs have substituted participation by line workers for engineering time. Their operators rank at the top of our fifteen fab sample in terms of their intensity of participation in equipment maintenance activities, while their equipment engineers rank in the middle. In addition to equipment maintenance, another set of activities that affects manufacturing performance focuses on process-related problems and the manufacturing precision of the equipment. These activities can be grouped under the umbrella of statistical process control (SPC), which requires personnel to compare measures of processing outcomes (e.g., the height of a layer, the accuracy of alignment, processing time, particle generation,) against detailed specifications set by the process development group. For statistical process control (SPC) duties, Jfab and USfab do not emphasize the role of their line workers. Instead, Jfab has emphasized the role of the process engineer in conducting SPC, and its process engineers rank at the top of our fifteen fab sample in terms of the intensity with which they use SPC. Process engineers at USfab fall towards the bottom of our SPC rankings, and the fab\u27s SPC capabilities are rudimentary with no automated SPC capabilities and no real time process adjustment. Engineers at USfab were plagued with fire-fighting responsibilities, since they committed approximately 80% of their time to fire-fighting. The engineers were anxious for the program of skill upgrading of operators to bear fruit so that operators could assume more trouble-shooting responsibilities. As one engineer put it, We spend all of our time [taking care of] lots that went on hold. We want to train other people to do this, so we can have time for [more training and projects]. These findings suggest that both companies rely on their line workers for equipment performance, but not for process control. Jfab relies much more heavily on its process engineers, while USfab lags behind in establishing a focus for its process control efforts. As described below, the two companies in this case study have established human resource policies consistent with deepening and broadening the skills of their manufacturing personnel in order to pursue their strategies for equipment maintenance and SPC. They have, however, experienced very different levels of success measured by our five manufacturing metrics (stepper throughput, cycle time, direct labor productivity, line yield, and defect density). Jfab scores consistently at the top of the fifteen fabs in our sample while USfab scores in the bottom half. Their divergent performance can be at least partially attributed to the different level of stability of their production environments. Jfab was operating in a relatively stable environment with few process flows and moderated process problems with an advanced SPC capability. In contrast, USfab was undergoing a reorganization of its operations, new process introductions, and adopting a new shop-floor work organization to better integrate its upskilled production specialists into problemsolving activities. We anticipate that with time, USfab will at least partially catch up to the level of manufacturing performance enjoyed by Jfab, as their aggressive skill upgrade program matures, and as they adjust to the changes to their organizational structure and manufacturing process technologies. This section concludes by considering the influences of automation and differences in employment systems on the pervasiveness of skill upgrade efforts across job categories

The Role of Interdependencies in Blockchain Adoption: The Case of Maritime Trade

Despite its many potential economic and organisational benefits, enterprise blockchain (distributed ledger) technology has still not been widely adopted. From the viewpoint of the participants, the deployment of a blockchain that links collaborating enterprises requires value creation that will exceed investment, including investment in operational and strategic change. The theory behind and practice of cross-enterprise open innovation can inform blockchain adoption. Blockchain implementation requires and creates interdependencies across collaborators, both among enterprise consortium partners and with stakeholders in the broader ecosystem. Distinguished from arm’s-length forms of collaboration, interdependencies occur when organisations intentionally collaborate to become reliant upon one another. In this paper, we develop a framework of blockchain interdependencies and explore key factors that promote or inhibit interdependence. We propose a blockchain collaboration continuum with three levels: cooperation, interdependence, and mutualism. We then explore factors that influence the level of interdependence: two types of consortium-level interdependencies – socio-technical and economic, and two types of ecosystem-level interdependencies – standards and legal/regulatory. We illustrate these interdependencies and their payoffs through the example of supply chains in maritime trade. This work can be used as a starting point for diagnosing critical factors influencing adoption and for illuminating points of leverage that may sway hesitant organisations to participate in blockchain consortia

Open Innovation and Strategy

The article discusses a process of business innovation known as open innovation and its relation to traditional business strategy. The competitive strategy developed by Michael Porter emphasized rivalry, buyer power, and barriers to entry as forces that could enhance a producer\u27s surplus. The authors discuss the impact of the Porterian value chain, the processes of production through to the consumer, on subsequent business practices. However, this theory does not account for external sources of value to a company, such as innovation communities, volunteer contributors and surrounding networks, including social networking web sites, open source software and the Wiki model of open contributions. The concept of openness requires shifting from ownership to value creation and value capture

The Evolving Role of Semiconductor Consortia in the United States and Japan

This article examines the interactions between public and private actors as cooperation in the semiconductor industry becomes increasingly international. The latest manifestations of multilateral collaboration are two consortia: I300I based in the United States and Selete based in Japan. Through an analysis of their structures and their origins, this article provides a deeper understanding of the complexities facing industry-wide consortia, the role of the government in promoting or inhibiting cooperation, and the lingering rivalries that impede truly global cooperation in a dynamic, high-technology industry

Acceleration management: the semiconductor industry confronts the 21st century

In the recent generations of semiconductor devices, the semiconductor industry has been accelerating towards the limits of the physical sciences. As a consequence, technology managers in that industry face seven major challenges, which will threaten progress: process, complexity, performance, power, density, productivity, and quality / reliability. We believe that confronting these challenges requires a new approach to technology management both within organizations and between organizations that form the backbone of the industry. We call this new approach Acceleration Management. Acceleration Management first requires that firms cultivate deep technical knowledge and inspire creative solutions to seemingly insoluble technical problems. The second stage of Acceleration Management requires the necessary expertise to be pooled, which often demands inter-organizational cooperation. This paper explores these managerial imperatives and analyzes how new semiconductor firms--particularly in China--have created niches in the value chain even during a tumultuous time in the industry\u27s history

Spin-dependent thermoelectric transport coefficients in near-perfect quantum wires

Thermoelectric transport coefficients are determined for semiconductor quantum wires with weak thickness fluctuations. Such systems exhibit anomalies in conductance near 1/4 and 3/4 of 2e^2/h on the rising edge to the first conductance plateau, explained by singlet and triplet resonances of conducting electrons with a single weakly bound electron in the wire [T. Rejec, A. Ramsak, and J.H. Jefferson, Phys. Rev. B 62, 12985 (2000)]. We extend this work to study the Seebeck thermopower coefficient and linear thermal conductance within the framework of the Landauer-Buettiker formalism, which also exhibit anomalous structures. These features are generic and robust, surviving to temperatures of a few degrees. It is shown quantitatively how at elevated temperatures thermal conductance progressively deviates from the Wiedemann-Franz law.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. B 2002; 3 figure

Lack of correlation of stem cell markers in breast cancer stem cells

BACKGROUND: Various markers are used to identify the unique sub-population of breast cancer cells with stem cell properties. Whether these markers are expressed in all breast cancers, identify the same population of cells, or equate to therapeutic response is controversial. METHODS: We investigated the expression of multiple cancer stem cell markers in human breast cancer samples and cell lines in vitro and in vivo, comparing across and within samples and relating expression with growth and therapeutic response to doxorubicin, docetaxol and radiotherapy. RESULTS: CD24, CD44, ALDH and SOX2 expression, the ability to form mammospheres and side-population cells are variably present in human cancers and cell lines. Each marker identifies a unique rather than common population of cancer cells. In vivo, cells expressing these markers are not specifically localized to the presumptive stem cell niche at the tumour/stroma interface. Repeated therapy does not consistently enrich cells expressing these markers, although ER-negative cells accumulate. CONCLUSIONS: Commonly employed methods identify different cancer cell sub-populations with no consistent therapeutic implications, rather than a single population of cells. The relationships of breast cancer stem cells to clinical parameters will require identification of specific markers or panels for the individual cancer