Strategic inventory control for stable production [semiconductor wafer manufacture]

Our ASIC factory runs many different types of devices with small lot sizes, so there is a critical need to efficiently control the use of many different types of reticle sets. Under these conditions, we were barely able to control the level of inventory and still achieve low cycle time. Our purposal, therefore, was to shorten cycle time, maintain overall capacity and control inventories by: decreasing non-value added operations/inventories; establishing stable production by using specific throughput and inventory (WIP) targets; and achieving better machine utilization. This paper mainly explains how to control inventories to achieve stable production.