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The Use of Upstream and Downstream Information in Scheduling Semiconductor Batch
Operations
Authors:
Jennifer Robinson
John Fowler
Arizona State University
Dept. of Industrial and Mgt. Systems Engr.
Box 875906
Tempe, Arizona 85287-5906
Jonathan Bard
University of Texas at Austin
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Operations Research Group
Austin, TX 78712
Abstract:
This paper presents a control strategy that exploits uses both upstream and downstream
information on the current and expected states of a semiconductor manufacturing facility
(fab) to make intelligent batch size decisions. Through simulation, this strategy is
compared with current methods that consider only upstream information, as well as with a
general threshold policy. The results confirm that significant improvements in cycle time
can be realized by exploiting upstream information. Some additional improvement can be
gained at low to moderate traffic intensities by looking downstream. However, as traffic
intensity increases, use of downstream information can actually lead to longer delays,
indicating that the scheduling of the batch machine may be more important than the
scheduling of the serial machine in congested systems.
Reference:
International Journal of Production Research , Vol. 33, No. 7, 1849-1870, 1995.
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