On the corrupting influence of variability in semiconductor manufacturing

This paper describes two simulation experiments using a model of a real medium sized multi-product semiconductor chip fabrication facility. The results presented clearly show the corrupting influence of variability, in this case caused by machine and tool unavailability. The immediate conclusion out of the results is that reducing the inherent variability of a manufacturing system improves the overall system performance. Hence, sampling shop-floor data should not only include first order statistics, but also measures that allow to monitor and model the variability of the machinery.

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