A Web Services-Based Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) Framework for Managing Spare Parts of Semiconductor Equipment

In a semiconductor foundry, equipment failure has long been recognized as a major cause of unpredicted breakdown which results in an excessive production loss. Equipment maintenance management is one of the essential tasks in semiconductor manufacturing. Due to the prosperity of Internet and IT, e-diagnostics and e-maintenance through the Web have become important applications in the semiconductor industry. Web services (WSs) can assist the data integration in heterogeneous e-manufacturing systems to support faster and remote maintenance functions. In this paper, a WS-based collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) framework, namely WS-CPFR, is developed to collaboratively manage the logistics activities of spare parts in semiconductor equipment between equipment suppliers and semiconductor factories.