Talking shop - linking training to factory indicators

Mean time to repair, mean time to repeat failure/repair, time to first failure after PM (preventative maintenance), and tool availability - the need to link these topics to training and other performance interventions is becoming paramount. How do we know that the time a technician spends in training (or other performance intervention) is worth it? As Intel continuously strives for improvement, departments are asked to prove their impact in terms of business/factory pay-offs. This paper discusses a successful project at Intel in which training was evaluated in terms of equipment indicator improvements, namely: average availability increase across AWX (Automated Wet Station/Bench) tools of 4.25% (which equated /spl sim/8 additional hours of production time/week).Variation in availability declined by an average 4.4% across the AWX tools.