A new scheduling approach using combined dispatching criteria in wafer fabs

In this paper, a scheduling approach that combines multiple dispatching criteria into a single rule, with the objective of simultaneously optimizing multiple performance measures is proposed. This is accomplished using a linear combination with relative weights. The weights identify the contribution of the different criteria. The weights' assignments to the different criteria are optimized using a mixture design of experiments (DOE) and multiple response optimization. Results using this new approach show significant improvement versus the use of a single dispatching criterion.