Event graph modeling of a homogeneous job shop with bi-inline cells

In modern electronics Fabs, most production lines consist of inline cells that have processing machines along the conveyor line inside. In this type of Fab, a large number of different products are loaded concurrently, which requires a production simulator to analyze the planning and scheduling of the Fab operations. In order to build such a simulator, (1) a typical TFT-LCD Fab is simplified into a job shop consisting only of bi-inline cells and (2) the job shop is represented as an event graph model. This type of job shop consisting only of machines of the same type is referred to as homogeneous job shop. The event graph model was verified using SIGMA and sample input data. However, if a production line contains uni-inline cells as well as bi-inline cells, we need a heterogeneous job shop model and this requires further study.