Determining capacity loss from operational and technical deployment practices in a semiconductor manufacturing line

This paper describes a data analysis system that accurately measures the amount of capacity lost from both operational and technical deployment issues. Deployment is defined as instances where WIP is queued in front of a busy tool when another tool, which can run this product, has some idle-no-WIP time. In this case, the idle-no-WIP must be treated as capacity loss because the opportunity to run WIP on the tool with idle time has been lost. This tool combines equipment state data, lot logistic data, and tool restriction data to determine the magnitude of this loss. As a result, meaningful statistics can be obtained about differences in team work methods, the amount of staffing on the floor the consequences of non-optimized tool layout, and the effects of technical restrictions.