Push and Time at Operation strategies for cycle time minimization in global fab scheduling for semiconductor manufacturing

This paper investigates two global scheduling strategies for cycle time minimization in semiconductor manufacturing. These global scheduling strategies represented as a linear programming models are compared to a First-in-First out dispatching rule. The first global scheduling strategy is a Push strategy, in which products are pushed to their final operations using high Work-In-Process holding costs on the first operations. The second global scheduling strategy is a Time at Operation strategy, where Work-In-Process quantities that have arrived at different times in an operation are penalized differently. The computational results performed on industrial data using the Anylogic simulation software coupled with IBM ILOG CPLEX show that the Time at Operation strategy minimizes the cycle time while maintaining a high throughput compared to the Push strategy and the simple First-In-First-Out dispatching rule. The paper also shows, when production targets are determined using the Push strategy, products with a large number of operations are prioritized.

Automated summary

This paper examines two global scheduling strategies for minimizing cycle time in semiconductor manufacturing, comparing them to a First-in-First-out dispatching rule. The results show that the Time at Operation strategy outperforms the Push strategy and simple First-In-First-Out dispatching rule in terms of minimizing cycle time while maintaining high throughput.