A fuzzy set approach for evaluating and enhancing the mid-term competitiveness of a semiconductor factory

Fuzzy set theory is applied in this study to establish a systematic procedure for evaluating the mid-term competitiveness of a semiconductor manufacturing factory. Subsequently, to enhance the overall competitiveness of the semiconductor manufacturing factory, a capacity re-allocation mechanism is designed to improve the competitiveness of less competitive products without raising the expense of the other products and diminishing their competitiveness. For this purpose, a fuzzy nonlinear programming (FNP) model is constructed and is then converted into an equivalent NP problem that can be solved with the existing optimization problem-solving package. To prove the usefulness of the proposed methodology, a real case containing the data collected from a DRAM manufacturing factory was investigated. After reallocating its capacity, the competitiveness of the whole factory was indeed enhanced. Besides, the capacity plan developed by the capacity re-allocation mechanism was shown to be both efficient and practical.