THE GROWING COMPLEXITY AND RIGIDITY OF MES AND AUTOMATION SYSTEMS

摘要

Over the past several years, manufacturing information systems in the semiconductor industry have strained to keep up with the increasing demands for more functionality, more flexibility and ultimately greater control over the manufacturing process. During the last five years, the complexity of the wafer fabrication process has increased significantly as the cost to start up a new fab has climbed over $1 billion. In an attempt to gain more control over this complexity, manufacturing and operations management have driven IT organizations to integrate more applications, such as real-time scheduling, maintenance management, cell controllers, and yield analysis, into their shop floor control systems. Many companies have attempted this integration and most have met with mixed results. Consider the following data points: 1The cost to integrate stand-alone point solutions into a full MES & Automation system has climbed to $14M-$20M for new 200mm fabs. 2SEMATECH estimates that real "productive" equipment effectivity is only 30%, due in part to poor integration between the MES and these new cell control, scheduling, and maintenance management applications. 3Backlogs of IT projects have dramatically increased due to the increased complexity of the current "point-to-point" integration approach. This presentation will describe the emergence of framework-based MES solutions that can dramatically reduce system complexity and result in: 4Lower implementation and support costs 5More responsive and more controlled manufacturing operations 6More responsive IT organizations 7Increased equipment effectivity through the integration of MES, automation, scheduling, and maintenance management systems.