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Casual Articles - Using the Six-Sigma Methodology to Improve Wafer Fab Productivity
If you have followed through with creating a decent business plan, then you are ready to pick a location. You might already have one in mind. But, you need other things to think about.Location, Location, Location. That’s the rule of thumb. If you are planning on opening a restaurant, you need the perfect area. But, there is no set formula for where the perfect location is. A restaurant out in the middle of nowhere could thrive because of its sense of privacy. A restaurant just up the street from another restaurant could thrive because it offers consumers a choice. You never really know if the location is going to be a hit or not. So, it does require a good bit of thought.Of course, location can be measured rather decently if you are able to look around and see a need without the service. If you want to open a computer service store, right in the middle of a town that has no computer service store is a great bet. But, you really have to know the area. There are some towns throughout the country that are still in the dark ages. A computer store would not thrive in a town that only has one computer everyone uses.These are just some of the things to think about when you are trying to find the perfect location for your business. The great thing about Rivky’s Art Workshops is that they don’t require any specific location. They are great for any region and they can literally be opened anywhere. Here are just some ideas.HomePlenty of businesses have been started out of the home. Only when the business outgrew the home did it have to be relocated. An art workshop is perfect for the home and that’s an expense you already have. But, there is an added benefit. Now, your home becomes a business expense and you can get tax cuts and credits from running a business from your home.ChurchYou may not be religious, but an art workshop fits with the kind of business that some churches will allow. Most churches have recreation rooms that have enough space for you to teach a small group of 20 to 30 people. If you approach the church and pitch the art workshop in the right manner, many churches will find it hard to turn you down. They might ask for a small fee t
Another pivotal decision made at this early stage of the project, was the creation of a Steering Committee. For any project of this scope to be successful, there must be clear support and quick decisions by management and stake holders. From the outset of the project, Intersil and Tefen organized a weekly meeting to review progress, activities, plans, schedules, and problems. The Steering Committee was composed of high-level management and engineering leaders, who were capable of assessing the project activities, progress, and direction, and making all needed decisions. This Steering Committee was essential to the timely implementation of solutions throughout the project.
Given the project scope of the Photo area, the next step in the DMAIC is “Measure”. The measure step has four main objectives:
1. More specifically define the scope of the project and delineate the
When all else fails in your company to meet the needs of your customer consider a customer service consultant. If you find that agents in your company are constantly having misunderstanding that result in loss of customers bring in a consultant. There are a number of resources available in books and on the Internet to help you find which consultant best suits your company.A customer service consultant will help re-evaluate your company objectives and see if they match your current customer service trends. They provide training programs, workshops, and coaching methods that will help to maximize your agents’ abilities in order to meet customer needs. This will help your agents to handle negative experiences by the customer internally rather than forcing them to contact the corporate office for resolution. Sometimes it depends on how well agents in your company can endure and handle negative calls that may or may not lead a customer to choose to do business with a competitor.Customer service consultants will monitor performance of your company’s agents to determine how effective your customer service department is when it comes to handling calls. They will then customize a package through use of data obtained from confidential interviews, current policies and procedures, along with other resources to fit the specific needs of your customers and your company. When an assessment is complete they will serve your company with future guidelines that will help keep things in check.Customer service consultants can help to optimize the communications between agents of your company and your customers. The more capable agents are to resolve service complaints at the initial level the more you will retain customers. Customer service consultants can point out what your company may be failing to implement to make customers feel important. You may be pointing in the right direction as far as your company policies and practices go, but a customer service consultant can help give you the push to jump start a highly effective customer service center. Customer service consultants pride themselves on keeping up with technological trends and advancements that you and your company may not have time to keep up with
Given the sensitive and proprietary nature of the semiconductor environment, in the following article we will focus on the DMAIC methodology, its application at Intersil, and normalized performance indicators (not the specific performance indicators that were so key to the DMAIC method). In this article we will highlight how the DMAIC method guided our activity, were we made concessions and why, the improvements and solutions the team developed, and the types of results we were able to achieve.
In the Fall of 2002 it became clear to Intersil that they did not have the production capacity to meet their market demand. They were forecasting a need to increase the number of wafer starts per week 37%. The required increase in wafer starts could drive an increase in Lithography output of 43%, depending on the product mix. In addition to the demand requirements, increasing cycle times were causing scheduling and commitment issues.
Intersil was aware of several of the problems and had several projects underway to address some of the issues. But, their capacity planning forecasted a shortfall between the capacity increases expected from current projects and the capacity they needed to meet ramp plans. As a result, they determined that they may benefit from external resources with the proper expertise. At this point, Tefen was engaged to help them focus on the right problems, and then aggressively develop and implement solutions.
The first step in the DMAIC methodology it to “Define” the scope and focus of the project. You don’t want to try to boil the ocean, so you need to scope the project such that you can achieve results in an acceptable time span. The definition process started with a short on-site assessment of the fab operations. Based on Intersil’s current capacity data and performance indicators it became clear that the Photo area (Coat, Expose, Develop, Measure) was the primary bottleneck out of all the major areas (other areas being Dry Etch, Diffusion, Ion Implant, Deposition, and Wet Etch). A tour of the Fab confirmed what the data was indicating. The Photo area was inundated with WIP at every station and tool, this excessive WIP was contributing to operational inefficiencies by impeding scheduling, staging, staffing, etc.
At this point the scope and focus of the project became much clearer. At a high level, the Photo area was the bottleneck, constraining capacity needed for output and cycle time. Given the relatively small size of the entire Photo area, the integration of staffing between all areas, the flow of WIP between these areas, and the general interdependency between the Photo areas, it was determined that the Photo areas needed to be addressed as a whole (i.e., starting with Coat, then to Expose, to Develop, to Measure). Intersil already had tool installation projects underway that should net 15%-20% additional capacity. Therefore, Tefen was challenged with finding an additional 20%-25% capacity to enable Intersil to meet its demand targets.
Another pivotal decision made at this early stage of the project, was the creation of a Steering Committee. For any project of this scope to be successful, there must be clear support and quick decisions by management and stake holders. From the outset of the project, Intersil and Tefen organized a weekly meeting to review progress, activities, plans, schedules, and problems. The Steering Committee was composed of high-level management and engineering leaders, who were capable of assessing the project activities, progress, and direction, and making all needed decisions. This Steering Committee was essential to the timely implementation of solutions throughout the project.
Given the project scope of the Photo area, the next step in the DMAIC is “Measure”. The measure step has four main objectives:
1. More specifically define the scope of the project and delineate the
Performance management is the process through which your business sets, measures and reviews the objectives and performance of your people.Undertaken consistently, effective performance management will help you retain the right people, improve their performance and the overall performance of your business.Conversely – the failure to performance manage your team can result in losing your best people, keeping the wrong type of people and the consequent stagnation of your business.But what does this all mean within the context of a small business?WHAT IS IT?- Ensuring each of your team is clear of what is expected of them in terms of both outcomes and behaviour- Giving constructive feedback on an ongoing basis – positive and negative – so people know how they are doing on a day to day basis- Conducting a formal appraisal annually to review their progress- Conducting some kind of performance review every six months- Challenging and stretching your staff to improve their performance and reach their potential- Helping under performers to improve and get ‘back on track’WHY DO IT?- It gives your people clarity as to how they are doing and what they need to do to deliver the business plan- From a legal standpoint, it is a key part of practising good relations with your staff and minimising any legal risk to yourself- It helps you improve the performance and morale of your team- It helps you grow your business by stretching and developing your people- It helps you retain your top performers as they a) are being developed and b) see you are willing to tackle under performing members of the team- It helps you manage out the people who are not right for the business in an appropriate manner- It’s also the right and fair thing to do for your peopleHOW DO I DO IT?- Ensure everyone has a clear brief about the expectations of their role and the measures of success- Diarise formal annual appraisals and 6 monthly performance reviews- Conduct a review at the end of three months for all new starters- On a day-to-day basis, catch people doing things w
Given the sensitive and proprietary nature of the semiconductor environment, in the following article we will focus on the DMAIC methodology, its application at Intersil, and normalized performance indicators (not the specific performance indicators that were so key to the DMAIC method). In this article we will highlight how the DMAIC method guided our activity, were we made concessions and why, the improvements and solutions the team developed, and the types of results we were able to achieve.
In the Fall of 2002 it became clear to Intersil that they did not have the production capacity to meet their market demand. They were forecasting a need to increase the number of wafer starts per week 37%. The required increase in wafer starts could drive an increase in Lithography output of 43%, depending on the product mix. In addition to the demand requirements, increasing cycle times were causing scheduling and commitment issues.
Intersil was aware of several of the problems and had several projects underway to address some of the issues. But, their capacity planning forecasted a shortfall between the capacity increases expected from current projects and the capacity they needed to meet ramp plans. As a result, they determined that they may benefit from external resources with the proper expertise. At this point, Tefen was engaged to help them focus on the right problems, and then aggressively develop and implement solutions.
The first step in the DMAIC methodology it to “Define” the scope and focus of the project. You don’t want to try to boil the ocean, so you need to scope the project such that you can achieve results in an acceptable time span. The definition process started with a short on-site assessment of the fab operations. Based on Intersil’s current capacity data and performance indicators it became clear that the Photo area (Coat, Expose, Develop, Measure) was the primary bottleneck out of all the major areas (other areas being Dry Etch, Diffusion, Ion Implant, Deposition, and Wet Etch). A tour of the Fab confirmed what the data was indicating. The Photo area was inundated with WIP at every station and tool, this excessive WIP was contributing to operational inefficiencies by impeding scheduling, staging, staffing, etc.
At this point the scope and focus of the project became much clearer. At a high level, the Photo area was the bottleneck, constraining capacity needed for output and cycle time. Given the relatively small size of the entire Photo area, the integration of staffing between all areas, the flow of WIP between these areas, and the general interdependency between the Photo areas, it was determined that the Photo areas needed to be addressed as a whole (i.e., starting with Coat, then to Expose, to Develop, to Measure). Intersil already had tool installation projects underway that should net 15%-20% additional capacity. Therefore, Tefen was challenged with finding an additional 20%-25% capacity to enable Intersil to meet its demand targets.
Another pivotal decision made at this early stage of the project, was the creation of a Steering Committee. For any project of this scope to be successful, there must be clear support and quick decisions by management and stake holders. From the outset of the project, Intersil and Tefen organized a weekly meeting to review progress, activities, plans, schedules, and problems. The Steering Committee was composed of high-level management and engineering leaders, who were capable of assessing the project activities, progress, and direction, and making all needed decisions. This Steering Committee was essential to the timely implementation of solutions throughout the project.
Given the project scope of the Photo area, the next step in the DMAIC is “Measure”. The measure step has four main objectives:
1. More specifically define the scope of the project and delineate the
Imagine if Yahoo! had been named TheInternetDirectoy. Or StarBucks was christened “Premier Coffees”. The names would be far more descriptive than their current ones. But they wouldn’t embody the essence or spirit of the companies they represent. Even if they offered the exact same goods and services, it’s unlikely Yahoo! or StarBucks would enjoy the same market share they now possess if given the more descriptive, and arguably accurate, names.Now why is that?In short, great brand names leverage our emotions. They resonate with the experiential right side of the brain vs. the logical left lobe. And emotions carry more motivational “charge” than logic. People buy emotionally and then justify rationally. And because great brand names create mental “pictures” they equate to a proverbial thousand descriptive words. They are the zipped files, the condensed soup, the computer macros, that all expand and unfold in our minds every time they are seen or heard.Creating emotionally charged names requires knowledge, expertise and a knack for wording. The first place to find positively charged names is in the words themselves. Words have equity and that equity can be transferred into a company or product name. For example, a company that wanted their customers to see their products and services as fresh, new and exciting borrowed the emotional charge associated with the word “virgin”. That’s how we have Virgin Airlines and Virgin Records. A computer company demonstrated its fresh, friendly approach to the industry with the consumable name Apple. A campy clothing company exuded adventure with its name Banana Republic. An online job board wanted to impress employers and job seekers with its massive listings… hence Monster. And need I mention Amazon? Borrowing on the attributes intrinsic to a word or phrase is a natural way to instantly instill emotion in a brand name.But with more and more dictionary words being used, hoarded and trademarked, what’s a company to do? Another way is to simply put familiar positive words into unique combinations. Witness our previous example of StarBucks. What’s brighter than a star or has more mass appeal than money? Does it say coffee? N
Intersil was aware of several of the problems and had several projects underway to address some of the issues. But, their capacity planning forecasted a shortfall between the capacity increases expected from current projects and the capacity they needed to meet ramp plans. As a result, they determined that they may benefit from external resources with the proper expertise. At this point, Tefen was engaged to help them focus on the right problems, and then aggressively develop and implement solutions.
The first step in the DMAIC methodology it to “Define” the scope and focus of the project. You don’t want to try to boil the ocean, so you need to scope the project such that you can achieve results in an acceptable time span. The definition process started with a short on-site assessment of the fab operations. Based on Intersil’s current capacity data and performance indicators it became clear that the Photo area (Coat, Expose, Develop, Measure) was the primary bottleneck out of all the major areas (other areas being Dry Etch, Diffusion, Ion Implant, Deposition, and Wet Etch). A tour of the Fab confirmed what the data was indicating. The Photo area was inundated with WIP at every station and tool, this excessive WIP was contributing to operational inefficiencies by impeding scheduling, staging, staffing, etc.
At this point the scope and focus of the project became much clearer. At a high level, the Photo area was the bottleneck, constraining capacity needed for output and cycle time. Given the relatively small size of the entire Photo area, the integration of staffing between all areas, the flow of WIP between these areas, and the general interdependency between the Photo areas, it was determined that the Photo areas needed to be addressed as a whole (i.e., starting with Coat, then to Expose, to Develop, to Measure). Intersil already had tool installation projects underway that should net 15%-20% additional capacity. Therefore, Tefen was challenged with finding an additional 20%-25% capacity to enable Intersil to meet its demand targets.
Another pivotal decision made at this early stage of the project, was the creation of a Steering Committee. For any project of this scope to be successful, there must be clear support and quick decisions by management and stake holders. From the outset of the project, Intersil and Tefen organized a weekly meeting to review progress, activities, plans, schedules, and problems. The Steering Committee was composed of high-level management and engineering leaders, who were capable of assessing the project activities, progress, and direction, and making all needed decisions. This Steering Committee was essential to the timely implementation of solutions throughout the project.
Given the project scope of the Photo area, the next step in the DMAIC is “Measure”. The measure step has four main objectives:
1. More specifically define the scope of the project and delineate the
We really need to trust our intuition more.I was talking to someone a few weeks ago, and explained that I thought our decision-making process should be based on three inner criteria: intellect, intuition and emotion.Here's a scenario:I'm in a grocery store and I see a chocolate bar. My intellectual process goes something like this, "I'm on Weight Watchers. It's my intention to lose weight. If I eat the chocolate bar, I won't be true to myself and my intentions, and I won't lose weight." It's all about reason and good judgment.My emotional talk goes something like this, "Waaa! I want a chocolate bar! I want a chocolate bar! No one can tell me what to do! (Not even me.)" It's all about how my emotions impact my decision and what will help fulfill my emotional needs.So now I have one vote "for" and one vote "against". I stop and ask my inner self, my soul, my gut instinct, "Is this the right thing to do at this exact moment in time?" It replies, "It doesn't feel right to have this now." It's all about what feels right on a deeper, spiritual level, and in the grand scheme of my life lessons.Final vote: two against, one for...so I don't buy the candy bar (and find some other way to placate my whining Inner Child).This is, of course, just an example of how the three-part decision making process happens in my world. I apply this same thing to all of my business decisions: Should I create this particular class? Should I partner with this particular person? Should I take on this new client? Should I invest in a new printer? When is the right time to take a vacation?Notice the question I put to my intuition: Is this the right thing to do at this exact moment in time? I'm asking a question that can have only have a yes or no answer, and I'm asking it in the present tense (Is this right for me, right now?). It's the best way I know to frame questions so that you can get an intuitive, gut response to something.It's the only balanced internal voting system I know.------------------------------------------------------------© 2006 Karyn Greenstreet.
At this point the scope and focus of the project became much clearer. At a high level, the Photo area was the bottleneck, constraining capacity needed for output and cycle time. Given the relatively small size of the entire Photo area, the integration of staffing between all areas, the flow of WIP between these areas, and the general interdependency between the Photo areas, it was determined that the Photo areas needed to be addressed as a whole (i.e., starting with Coat, then to Expose, to Develop, to Measure). Intersil already had tool installation projects underway that should net 15%-20% additional capacity. Therefore, Tefen was challenged with finding an additional 20%-25% capacity to enable Intersil to meet its demand targets.
Another pivotal decision made at this early stage of the project, was the creation of a Steering Committee. For any project of this scope to be successful, there must be clear support and quick decisions by management and stake holders. From the outset of the project, Intersil and Tefen organized a weekly meeting to review progress, activities, plans, schedules, and problems. The Steering Committee was composed of high-level management and engineering leaders, who were capable of assessing the project activities, progress, and direction, and making all needed decisions. This Steering Committee was essential to the timely implementation of solutions throughout the project.
Given the project scope of the Photo area, the next step in the DMAIC is “Measure”. The measure step has four main objectives:
1. More specifically define the scope of the project and delineate the
Bad bosses, poor supervisors, inept managers create negative impact on the bottom line including less production, higher turnover and increased operating costs. These individuals all share one common trait – poor business ethics and values.An organization is a group of people working together to achieve shared goals. Everyone should have the same high personal ethics and personal values respective to each other, the customers, the vendors and even the community. However, when supervisory or higher employees continually demonstrate negative values and ethics, the organization’s performance suffers from the bottom up.Unfortunately, many of these same organizations believe the answer for these employee related issues is improved training for their employees and waste thousands of dollars focusing on the symptom instead of the problem. These organizations are living Einstein’s’ definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over again hoping for different results) on a daily basisFlorida State University just released a study (January 2007) of more than 700 people within a variety of industries and at different employment levels revealed some interesting facts: Almost two out of five bosses (39%) fail to keep their word One in four supervisors (27%) insulted those they supervised to fellow co-workers One in five (23%) blamed others for their mistakes Almost one in three (31%) used the silent treatment to show displeasure All of these behaviors demonstrate that these bosses lacked personal values and personal ethics. This lack of ethical behavior may be attributed to top management because upper management has probably modeled the same behaviors. Finally, there is probably no core values adopted by the organization within the strategic plan. Even if there is a values statement, it is much more for show.With all the national attention on corporate malfeasance to corruption politicians, we, as Americans, should not be surprised by the results of this study. Poor ethical behavior attracts poor ethical behavior and becomes the justifying reason for continued poor ethical behavior.To stop this negative drain o
Another pivotal decision made at this early stage of the project, was the creation of a Steering Committee. For any project of this scope to be successful, there must be clear support and quick decisions by management and stake holders. From the outset of the project, Intersil and Tefen organized a weekly meeting to review progress, activities, plans, schedules, and problems. The Steering Committee was composed of high-level management and engineering leaders, who were capable of assessing the project activities, progress, and direction, and making all needed decisions. This Steering Committee was essential to the timely implementation of solutions throughout the project.
Given the project scope of the Photo area, the next step in the DMAIC is “Measure”. The measure step has four main objectives:
1. More specifically define the scope of the project and delineate the required improvement activities.
2. Gather data to qualify the opportunities for improvement and quantify their potential for improvement.
3. Gather data to quantify the current state performance and create a baseline from which improvement can be measured.
4. Based on the data analysis provide insight into what the root causes are for the problems identified.
Even if a client has automated data collection and analysis (which was the case at Intersil), it is important to validate the data prior to using it, understand how the data is collected, and how the performance indicators are generated. To this end, Tefen performed an extensive observation study (referred to as an MOS, which stands for Multi-Observation Study). In this case, Tefen performed an abbreviated MOS, which entailed sampling of the equipment and personnel states 24 hours a day over four days. Four days of sampling enabled observation of all five shift teams. The end result was about 400 observations per entity (e.g., Coat Tool #1, Operator X, Measurement Tool #4, etc.) specifying production activity, idle activity, unavailable activity, etc. The MOS data collection technique (see MOS Methodology in Figure 2) has proved to be a very accurate method for validating the client’s data, and is detailed enough to allow for sophisticated data analysis (see Figures 3 and 4) of the performance of the production resources. The MOS also provides a valuable opportunity for Tefen to spend extensive time in the production environment to better understand where the problems are and what their root cause(s) could be.
The MOS results allowed us to refine the scope of the project to focus on addressing a set of primary activities. For example, Figure 4 illustrates the non-productive, idle activities for an Exposure tool set and their potential improvement to capacity. The combination of MOS data and Intersil’s automated data provided a clear baseline from which improvement could be measured. In addition, by establishing a baseline we were able to calculate and target the specific performance numbers needed by Intersil to meet production goals. At a high level, the baseline performance and capacity was expressed through a combination of area output and cycle time, and was trended weekly throughout the project. At this point we progressed quickly to the next step of the DMAIC process, and began to “Analyze” what the root causes were to the capacity detractors. Using the list of improvement opportunities previously identified by the MOS, we created four focus teams to tackle the problems in parallel. To ensure progress and communication, the Focus teams were responsible for reporting to Management at the weekly Steering Committee meetings.
Given the areas of opportunity we created cross-functional focus teams to concentrate on four main areas:
1. Work Methods – Assess affects of on-floor operator work methods on area performance, isolate problem areas, determine best methods, standardize, and create new work methods to improve performance. For example, given the drop in tool activity during shift changes (see Fig. 3), one task this team had was to analyze what happens at shift change that causes this drop, understand the root causes, and improve the shift change process.
2. Dispatching and Scheduling – Assess the affects of the interaction and instruction of the MES on the area performance, identify any detractors to optimize throughput and cycle time, and make any necessary changes to improve the performance. The Dispatch Team also accepted responsibility for redesigning the prioritization strategy and algorithms which would be applied first in the Photo area, and then expanded across the Fab. For example, most Photo area tools have flush-and-fill speed detractors, so one task of this team was to understand what information the operators need to optimally stage product to minimize the speed loss from product-type changeovers, and ensure this information i
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