Special Issue: Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences: SLIM: Short Cycle Time and Low Inventory in Manufacturing at Samsung Electronics

SLIM is a set of methodologies and scheduling applications for managing cycle time in semiconductor manufacturing. SLIM includes methodology for calculating target cycle times and target WIP levels for individual manufacturing steps, heuristic algorithms for factory floor scheduling, and optimization-based capacity analysis. Between 1996 and 1999, Samsung Electronics Corp., Ltd., implemented SLIM in all its semiconductor manufacturing facilities. It reduced manufacturing cycle times to fabricate dynamic random access memory devices from more than 80 days to less than 30. Considering the decline of selling prices for dynamic random access memory devices, SLIM enabled Samsung to capture an additional $1 billion in sales revenue compared to the revenue it would have realized had cycle times not been reduced.