Re-engineering the STMicroelectronics manufacturing model

Current manufacturing systems have a very structured production model, especially when high precision is required, as in semiconductor device manufacturing. In addition, rapid changes in production and market requirements may occur, hence great flexibility is also essential. These goals often impose the re-engineering of periodically existing models, in order to remove its limitations, also adding new capabilities, significantly reducing the time-to-market of new products. Updating a model generally also requires the improvement of existing applications, both re-writing software components as well as adding new features. We consider the current model used inside STMicroelectronics facilities to define production flow. We first describe the model and its limitations, then we introduce an enhanced, object-oriented model, with inheritance and hierarchy support. We also consider which improvements are required on existing applications in order to support such a model, introducing an enhanced environment